Subject: Re: [idn] Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC) Declaration Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 20:44:35 -0500 From: John C Klensin To: Erin Chen , IESG , IAB , IETF IDN WG , "Vinton G. Cerf" , "Masanobu Katoh <" , harald , Fred baker , Stuart Lynn , Paul Haffman , Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi , JET Members , Thomas Narten , Erik Nordmark , Andrew McLaughlin , "H. T. Kung" , Marc Blanchet , "James Seng/Personal" , Masanobu Katoh , Mouhamet Diop , "Patrik F?lstr?m" , Qiheng Hu , Sang-Hyon Kyong , Elisabeth Porteneuve CC: hlqian , mao ,Zhang Wen Hui , xiang deng ,xiaodong lee ,"tsenglm@計網中心.中大.tw" ,hoho , Kenny Huang ,Chun-Hsin Wu , sstseng ,Wen-Sung Chen , Nai-Wen Hsu ,yktham , jasonho ,alanysho , christine Erin, Let me follow up Vint's note with some thoughts of my own, with the understanding that they are mine personally and may not reflect positions I would feel obligated to take as technical advisor to the IDN WG or as a member of the IAB; the WG or the IAB might well disagree with what I'm about to say. I believe it has been fairly well demonstrated by this point that there are _many_ problems that the protocols specified in the IDN WG core documents will not solve. Many of these problems involve Chinese Domain Names, many others do not. At the root of most of both types of problems lies a distinction between "identifiers" -- character strings used in narrow contexts and to which many restrictive rules can be applied-- and "user-visible names". The latter must obey the rules of the languages in which they are constructed and written. If they do not, confusion and astonishment results. But, while some issues can be addressed with sufficient ingenuity, the DNS cannot, in general, solve user-visible name problems within the current design and basic DNS protocols. Again, this raises especially difficult problems for Chinese names, but there are problems of one sort or another with most languages. The solutions for those user-visible name problems, as we discussed in Minneapolis, lie in non-DNS mechanisms, protocols, and database, not in the DNS or the IDN WG's effort to fit some extra characters into the DNS. As we look at the IDN WG's efforts, it is important to remember, first, that Unicode (ISO 10646) is a tool. It is a tool that is better suited to some purposes than to others and it is one that was designed in the context of very complex tradeoffs. The WG chose to use that tool, largely because, given _their_ constraints, there were no plausible alternatives. Similarly, we should view the IDN WG's outputs --if, indeed, IDNA/ NAMEPREP/ STRINGPREP/ PUNYCODE turn out to be the outputs-- to be tools. They are not a perfect tool. It is easy to find problems they don't solve, and problems with characters that have equivalent meanings and different appearances and code points (as in TC<->SC mapping) and characters that have similar or identical appearances but belong to different scripts and have different code points (as in matching characters in Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts) are high on that list of unsolved problems. But, again, they are a tool, and, while it quite drastic, I suggest that there is a registration-based solution if that tool is inappropriate. The IDN WG also has the constraints, ultimately imposed by the DNS architecture, that it cannot make a decision that solves a problem for Greek at the expense of Cyrillic, nor can it make one that solves a Chinese problem at the expense of making Japanese or Korean unusable. Perhaps the more subtle matching and equivalence problems are sufficient to make the whole notion unusable, at least for user-visible names. While I suspect that might be true, the argument has not been convincingly made. This suggests some actions you might consider: (i) Your colleagues argued quite persuasively in Minneapolis that the difficulties imposed by the IDN WG approach on Chinese-Language Domain names would cause serious consumer confusion and disruption and could be expected to provide an unreasonably good opportunity for fraudulent behavior. I believe that I understand that argument, but many of the people to whom your statement was addressed probably do not. I would strongly suggest that you try to produce a document that explains the problems, in a tutorial style, and at a level adequate to educate someone with no knowledge of Chinese and, perhaps no working knowledge of any script other than his or her own. (ii) If registrations of CDNs are dangerous, prohibit them in your own ccTLDs and, with the document mentioned above as a tool, recommend to ICANN and directly to other domain administrators (top-level and otherwise) that these codes not be registered. That advice will, I fear inevitably, be ignored in some places. But, if the explanation of the consumer risks is clear enough, governments, regulators, and injured parties will have solid grounds for holding registrars who promote the use of such names responsible for any problems they cause. (iii) Please continue to work with me and with others to develop non-DNS solutions for user-visible names that do meet your needs by accomodating matching that uses language and other information in ways that the DNS cannot. thanks and regards, john --On Friday, 01 February, 2002 18:27 +0800 Erin Chen wrote: > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------- Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC) > Declaration > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ----------- > > Based on current status of Internationalized Domain Name, CDNC > makes following declaration: > > 1. Currently, IETF IDN WG begins Last Call for the WG core > documents (IDNA, NAMEPREP, STRINGPREP, and PUNYCODE). > > But, the architecture of IDN defined in above four documents > does not solve the traditional and simplified Chinese > character variant problem. That will cause serious delegation > problem in the application of Chinese Domain Name. This > technical flaw can't be compensated by registration policy; > it'll prevent Chinese Domain Name from being used widely. All > the future Internet applications based on Chinese Domain Name > hierarchy will fail and ultimately Chinese Domain Name > technology will result in failure. > > 2. Under the commercial and social pressure, IETF IDN WG > issues Last Call hastily without presenting a proper Chinese > Domain Name technical solution. It will be detrimental to the > ethnic-Chinese Internet community. > > 3. IETF IDN WG does not solve Chinese Domain Name technical > problem, but it is IETF IDN WG's responsibility to sincerely > consider the consequences from adopting these drafts. Under > the current condition, if IETF approves these IDN drafts, > registrars will open Chinese Domain Name registration without > considering the requirement of Chinese Domain Name and > Chinese Domain Name will fall into confusion. This will damage > Chinese Internet community seriously. > > 4. IDN would be flawed by not adopting CDN requirements. > > Chinese Domain Name Consortium > CDNC Founding members: CNNIC, TWNIC, HKNIC/HKDNR, MONIC > Co-chair of CDNC: Qian Hualin, Professor > Co-chair of CDNC: Shian-Shyong Tseng, Professor > 2002.2.1 > -------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------- > > > > > > >