<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small">Excellent! Couldn't have done better meself.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small">That last paragraph says it succinctly, especially when the term 'richer data' embraces the reality of IDNs.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small">-Carlton</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><br>==============================<br>Carlton A Samuels<br>Mobile: 876-818-1799<br><i><font color="#33CC00">Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround</font></i><br>=============================</div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Andrew Sullivan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ajs@anvilwalrusden.com" target="_blank">ajs@anvilwalrusden.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 02:15:38PM +0000, nathalie coupet via gnso-rds-pdp-wg wrote:<br>
> Could we have a brief explanation of why RDAP is the better protocol of them all?<br>
<br>
</span>Sure. See below.<br>
<span class=""><br>
> If we decide that an RDDS is needed, we’re going to have to find a way to provide that service using one of the options (WHOIS, WHOIS++, RWHOIS, IRIS, or RDAP) that are already available. RDAP is our best option.<br>
<br>
</span>Whois barely qualifies as a protocol. It listens on port 43 for<br>
input, and returns something. It is not clear whether it can do<br>
internationalization at all, and it was certainly created in a period<br>
when ASCII was the norm on the network. The output is intended to be<br>
consumed by humans. There is no authentication in the system, so only<br>
anonymous query sources are possible.<br>
<br>
Whois++ and rwhois were two different attempts to fix up whois to<br>
support the multi-registrar system. I could go into detail on this,<br>
but you said "short" and it would take a long mail. A sort of blend<br>
of these two is what we use today. The output is still intended to be<br>
consumed by humans and there's still no authentication. Rwhois is how<br>
we ended up with breakage about where to start looking for the right<br>
server -- the information had to be coded into the clients, and<br>
clients hang around for years, so it became very easy to ask the wrong<br>
server for information.<br>
<br>
IRIS is a protocol from the early 2000s that the IETF developed in<br>
response to a request by ICANN; it was basically intended to be the<br>
"directory service" side of the then-new Extensible Provisioning<br>
Protocol for registrations. It is a failure: I know of exactly one<br>
registry that ever implemented any part of it, and no registry that<br>
did the whole thing. It's complicated to implement because a<br>
programmer of it needs to implement the low-level transport parts;<br>
this is probably why it failed to get much traction.<br>
<br>
RDAP is the most recent re-do of this effort. It is JSON based so it<br>
is parsable by computers as well as displayable to humans. You get<br>
authentication for free, because it's a RESTful system so it uses HTTP(S)<br>
as its underlying protocol. The RIRs are already deploying it.<br>
<br>
The only one of these that is even a candidate is RDAP. The whois<br>
variants can't authenticate the source of the query, which means they<br>
have no way to provide different responses to different people (and<br>
therefore they can't provide richer data to those who actually need<br>
it, and a default minimal data set for anonymous queries). IRIS is a<br>
failed protocol. The idea that we need to analyse this or consider it<br>
or anything of the kind is mind-boggling.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
A<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
Andrew Sullivan<br>
<a href="mailto:ajs@anvilwalrusden.com">ajs@anvilwalrusden.com</a><br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">_______________________________________________<br>
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