[UA-Tech] BIUWG action item for Tech and Measurement WGs

Tue Nov 21 15:00:35 UTC 2023

Hi,

As John said, people don’t use variants equivalently.

A clear definition of variants does exist. It’s not exactly one sentence long, but it does exist 😉 What does not exist is agreement that users want to use all variants equivalently. There is rough agreement that users should have the right to use all variants equivalently, but that’s very different from an agreement that users want to do it or must do it.

Let me give a couple of examples of how users want to use variants differently:

  1.  For historical reasons, old web browsers write a few names incorrectly on-screen, but this was fixed years ago and current versions do the right thing. If your name is affected, you may want a unique right to the misspelled name in the DNS, so that no one else can register it and use it for an impersonation attack. You use only the correct form, but reserve the right to the old, incorrect form.
  2.  Suppose that you have both 滙豐 and 匯豐, which many people consider to be the same and other people consider different. People do not agree on which form is the correct one. (I haven’t checked whether they are variants in any of the current IDN TLDs, but they are the kind of thing that might reasonably be, so please allow it as an example.) In that case, one of the ways you might want to use two variant domains is to put a web site on each and use the name of that domain on that site. If you do that, you have two independent and (slightly) different web sites.

Arnt

From: UA-Tech <ua-tech-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of Hervé Hounzandji via UA-Tech <ua-tech at icann.org>
Reply to: Hervé Hounzandji <herve.hounzandji at gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 21 November 2023 at 09:10
To: gopal <gopal at annauniv.edu>
Cc: "ua-tech at icann.org" <ua-tech at icann.org>
Subject: Re: [UA-Tech] BIUWG action item for Tech and Measurement WGs

Hi guys,

thanks John et Gopal.

As a technician, it would be necessary to establish a clear definition of "variant" of a domain name otherwise we will not be able to move forward.
So, I need more details.
For example : myname.tld
variants are only on myname or on both myname and the TLD ?
For me, variants must concern only the first side : myname.

Have a great day !

Le mar. 21 nov. 2023 à 08:42, gopal via UA-Tech <ua-tech at icann.org<mailto:ua-tech at icann.org>> a écrit :
Thank you John Levine for the nice examples.

DNS does strict identifier mapping.

Humans using languages and scripts do fuzzy mappings

Can we reconcile them ?

Variant is a nice method adopted by ICANN.

There is today no fully accepted definition for what may constitute a variant relationship between top-level labels, and the results of the case studies suggest that it would be very difficult to come to a single definition at the current time, because there is more than one phenomenon being discussed.

For a given language or script, a codepoint may be valid in one TLD and invalid in another.

We need rules to conclude and halt. That is seldom easy.

The Simple LDH rule reads: A label that conforms to the hostname format that can consist of ASCII letters, digits, or hyphens. A hyphen must not occupy the first or last position of the label.

IDNs need LGRs to reckon with and compatible with the functioning of the DNS.

IMHO, there is a need to include the systemic support to ensure safe, reliable and resilient operations.

Your thoughts..

Sincerely,

A label<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/label-en> that conforms to the hostname<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/hostname-en> format defined in Request for Comments<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/request-for-comments-en> (RFC<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/request-for-comments-en>) 952, as modified by RFC<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/request-for-comments-en> 1123. LDH label<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/ldh-label-en>s can consist of ASCII<https://www.icann.org/en/icann-acronyms-and-terms/ascii-en> letters, digits, or hyphens. A hyphen must not occupy the first or last position of the Gopal T V

0 9840121302

https://vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/profile/57545 [vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/vidwan.inflibnet.ac.in/profile/57545__;!!PtGJab4!-B6Fx_6epJzcB8dKAgZpxEfDp4vR8suuBJoieFO0h4ijBt8yQ-FPVwm5tzbtLp45pbbSq0lXQ1Hz0l_2yCko2cksC8E$>
https://www.facebook.com/gopal.tadepalli [facebook.com]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.facebook.com/gopal.tadepalli__;!!PtGJab4!-B6Fx_6epJzcB8dKAgZpxEfDp4vR8suuBJoieFO0h4ijBt8yQ-FPVwm5tzbtLp45pbbSq0lXQ1Hz0l_2yCkojinCo4U$>
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. T V Gopal
Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
Anna University
Chennai - 600 025, INDIA
Ph : (Off) 22351723 Extn. 3340
       (Res) 24454753
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

________________________________
From: UA-Tech <ua-tech-bounces at icann.org<mailto:ua-tech-bounces at icann.org>> on behalf of John Levine via UA-Tech <ua-tech at icann.org<mailto:ua-tech at icann.org>>
Sent: 21 November 2023 06:52
To: ua-tech at icann.org<mailto:ua-tech at icann.org> <ua-tech at icann.org<mailto:ua-tech at icann.org>>
Subject: Re: [UA-Tech] BIUWG action item for Tech and Measurement WGs

It appears that Seda Akbulut via UA-Tech <seda.akbulut at icann.org<mailto:seda.akbulut at icann.org>> said:
>Background information about the BIUWG and UASG meeting:
>BIUWG raised that IDN variant TLDs may have an impact on UA and asked if UASG is considering it?

Experience tells us that the answer is no.

>  1.  Is there any points in the DNS ecosystem that needs variant domain names to be ‘merged’? ...

From a technical point of view, there is no such thing as variants.
They're just different domain names.  At a semantic level, people want
variants to be treated the same, but nobody has ever been able to
explain what "the same" means here.

It is not very hard to have a DNS provisioning system make two names
equivalent, and to install matching contents in the zones. I've done
it for my users who have multiple names that they want to act
similarly.  That's not a problem that needs to be solved.

It would also not be very hard to set up web and mail configurations
to tell the server that domains B, C, and D are the same as A. Web
requests for URLs in B, C, and D would do the same thing as requests
for URLs in A, or so mail to xxx at B, xxx at C, xxx at D go to the same place
as xxx at A. But you know what? Nobody has ever done it because NOBODY
CARES. The market has spoken and told us that there is no demand for
variant names.

The closest we've had to 2LD variants was .NGO and .ONG which were
until recently sold as a bundle, and everyone who had one also had the
other. I went through the zone files one time to see how many of them
had configured their web and mail servers to respond consistently to
both. One provider did, everyone else did one or the other but not
both. The .CAT registry used to provision accented and unaccented
versions of names with a DNAME, so that www.ABC.cat [abc.cat]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.ABC.cat__;!!PtGJab4!-B6Fx_6epJzcB8dKAgZpxEfDp4vR8suuBJoieFO0h4ijBt8yQ-FPVwm5tzbtLp45pbbSq0lXQ1Hz0l_2yCkoFncGrLQ$> and www.abc.cat [abc.cat]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/www.abc.cat__;!!PtGJab4!-B6Fx_6epJzcB8dKAgZpxEfDp4vR8suuBJoieFO0h4ijBt8yQ-FPVwm5tzbtLp45pbbSq0lXQ1Hz0l_2yCkoPLirXhM$>
pointed to the same place, where ABC and abc are accented and
unaccented versions of the name. Again I looked to see how many people
made their web servers respond consistently, and found that nobody
did.

I would suggest we direct our efforts elsewhere, to topics that people
do care about.

R's,
John

_______________________________________________
UA-Tech mailing list
UA-Tech at icann.org<mailto:UA-Tech at icann.org>
https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/ua-tech
_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.
_______________________________________________
UA-Tech mailing list
UA-Tech at icann.org<mailto:UA-Tech at icann.org>
https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/ua-tech
_______________________________________________
By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos). You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.

--
Hervé HOUNZANDJI
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/ua-tech/attachments/20231121/dcc68ea9/attachment-0001.html>