[UA-discuss] Review of UASG Charter

[Andrew Sullivan]

On Wed, Feb 17, 2016 at 11:32:19PM +0000, Mark Svancarek wrote:
> I still think it's important to distinguish between EAI and addresses in "local at punycode" formats, since many email clients treat those different in various scenarios.  What would you call that format?
> 

"Email address"?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "local@" above, so two possible
interpretations:

An address of the form [utf-8]@xn--something is just user-hostile.  In
order for the local-part to be in utf-8, the EAI extensions need to be
in place anyway; otherwise it won't work.  So refusing to handle the
IDNA server-part portion is really just poor implementation (a polite
way of saying "broken" ;-)).

If you mean the case where you have a non-EAI localpart with a
server-part that has at least one A-label, well, that's just
old-fashioned email.  It's certainly true that the target server name
is mystifying.  That is frustrating, but basically it's just an
IDNA-unaware client.  We designed IDNA the way we did precisely
because there are so many clients out there that couldn't accept
anything but LDH in a domain name slot (thats what the server-part is
-- see RFC 5890).

There are also clients -- the version of mutt I'm sending this mail
with, IIRC -- that have IDNA-awareness compiled in, and they can
display the server part as IDNA U-labels as opposed to A-labels.  So
if I registered crânkycanuck.ca (which under CIRA's rules I think I
could), you could send me mail at ajs at xn--crnkycanuck-x7a.ca and
(assuming I configured my MTA to take it) I'd see ajs at crânkycanuck.ca.
_This_ use case is definitely different to EAI, because the SMTP
extensions aren't needed.  But it's just ordinary IDNA, I think -- all
the transformations have to happen in the client at display time.  I
suppose there's an issue in that such a client might try EAI when it
attempts to send mail, and get a failure.

Best regards,

A

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org [mailto:ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
> Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 8:01 PM
> To: ua-discuss at icann.org
> Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Review of UASG Charter
> 
> I agree with the comment in the doc that "IDN email" isn't a thing.
> "Email using EAI" or "Email using address internationalization" or just "EAI" are correct.
> 
> Otherwise, no comment.
> 
> A
> 
> On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 03:43:21AM +0000, Don Hollander wrote:
> > Further to the face-to-face meeting of the UASG Coordination group in January, the charter has been reviewed some fundamental changes are proposed.
> > 
> > Instead of having a community of volunteers supported by a professional body, we’re proposing shifting to a professional body supported by volunteers.  The UASG Coordination group will shift more toward governance than operation, though volunteers are still very highly encouraged.
> > 
> > Please find attached a red-lined revision to the Charter.
> > 
> > Your comments would be welcome through the 22nd of February.
> > 
> > 
> > Don
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> ajs at anvilwalrusden.com

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com