Subject: Re: CNRP based service?

From: Nicolas Popp <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 00:15:10 -0700

>And, I hope that the people building this look at it that way, and not a
way to "screw" the
>development of DNS.

Patrick, more precisely, what are you worried about?

First, we have made it clear that the plan is to support the iDN working
group's final recommendation (in terms of nameprep and choice of encoding).
In fact, we can easily do that since everything happens on the server side.
So all this work is pretty safe in terms of future standard compatibility.

Second. just to make sure we are on the same technical page here: ALL we do
is transform up a poorly encoded domain name string that the browser had
already put on the wire (the hard coded behavior of IE is to always encode
the query string in utf-8) into a "properly" encoded domain name string
(where "properly" is defined by the iDN working group recommendation). In
other word, technically, we do not resolve the domain name at all. We don't
even do a Keyword lookup, we just nameprep & re-encode the string that we
receive, then asks the browser to try again (this time with only seven bit
characters). So, in the end, the DNS resolves it, not us. Whichever way I
look at it, that seems like a "good thing", as far as DNS and iDN are
concerned...

>that I feel this is more an embryo to a directory/search service on top of
DNS than a DNS thing. And, I >hope that the people building this look at it
that way.

As you may know, we are very supportive of John Klensin's idea
(draft-klensin-dns-search-00.txt) and we really hope thare will be a working
group soon so that we can take put these interesting ideas to work (BTW, I
sent questions and comments to [email-masked], but the
mailing list seems to still be inactive). However, in this implementation,
we do not even do a lookup, just a transformation. So, I had rather think
that John's proposal, Keywords and some of the key concepts behind CNRP are
the true embryo to creating a new layer on top of DNS. This is just a smart
server-side fix so that IE can behave like the iDN working group would like
it to...

Cheers.

-Nico

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrik Fältström [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 9:55 PM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: CNRP based service?

--On 01-06-22 10.01 +0800 "James Seng/Personal" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Would it be okay for you write this properly into an I-D for the
> information of the IDN Working Group?

Be very careful what you ask for.

A number of people have asked me privately if this "really" is something
which has anything to do with domain names.

One can say it does (because it starts by looking up something in DNS).

One can say it doesn't (because it doesn't use DNS for the resolution
process).

My response is (partly because the press release so explicitly talked about
the domain name system ;-) that I feel this is more an embryo to a
directory/search service on top of DNS than a DNS thing. And, I hope that
the people building this look at it that way, and not a way to "screw" the
development of DNS.

I.e. DNS is the most valuable jewel we have in the IETF portfolio of
protocols I claim. Everything needs to use DNS. Redefining DNS, and doing
the resolution differently for DNS might be needed, but, that is a
completely different question than whether we should have directory /
search services like this which leads to a domain name.

    paf

> *cheers*
>
> -James Seng
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nicolas Popp" <[email-masked]>
> To: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 1:40 AM
> Subject: Re: CNRP based service?
>
>
>> Theinternational domain names are resolving through RealNames Keywords
>> resolvers.
>> It is not based on CNRP as the existing versions of IE does not
> implement
>> CNRP (CNRP is not an RFC yet), but the resolution still happens
> through a
>> common name resolution system.
>> The way it works is as follows.
>>
>> 0. The user types ML.com
>> 1. The browser tries DNS but it fails
>> 2. The browser then tries the RealNames Keyword resolution system
> (using a
>> simple HTTP query interface)
>> 3. The Keywords resolver recognizes the suffix .com (or .org or .net).
> It
>> namepreps the ML string and encodes it using RACE encoding (DUDE
> tomorrow)
>> according to the iDN Working Group drafts.
>> 4. The resolver redirects the browser to bq--xxxx.mtbld.com (the
> Verisign
>> testbed)
>> 5. DNS and the test bed do the rest
>>
>> The nice thing about this approach is that:
>>
>> . No change is required at the client or at the ISP level.
>> . It is a server side implementation that can quickly be changed as
> the iDN
>> standard is finalized (we can backward enable IE with the final iDN
> standard
>> so that iDN names reolve properly). However, note that the name
> displayed in
>> the browser bar is the ascii encoded name not the language friendly
> name
>> that was typed initially.
>>
>> Obviously, it only works in IE at this point (where the keyword
> resolution
>> mechanism is built-in), but Web browsing is clearly a key application.
>>
>> Although, this is not specifically using CNRP, this is a great example
> of
>> the kind of things (extended naming services) that can be implemented
>> through CNRP enabled applications.
>>
>> -Nico
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kazuo NISHIYAMA [mailto:[email-masked]]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 3:58 AM
>> To: [email-masked]
>> Subject: CNRP based service?
>>
>>
>> Hello, I'm a newcomer of this ML.
>>
>> I found following news.
>>
>> > VeriSign Announces Breakthrough in Web Navigation
>> > For Tens of Millions of Users Worldwide
>> >
>> > Users can now reach Web sites via domain names in
>> > their own languages through Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
>> >
>> > http://corporate.verisign.com/news/2001/pr_20010620.html
>>
>> Is this service uses CNRP or different technology?
>>
>> ---
>> Kazuo NISHIYAMA
>> [email-masked]
>

Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>                         Cisco Systems
Consulting Engineer                                  Office of the CSO
Phone: (Stockholm) +46-8-6859131            (San Jose) +1-408-525-8509
        PGP: 2DFC AAF6 16F0 F276 7843  2DC1 BC79 51D9 7D25 B8DC

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 10:18:01 +0200

> Patrick, more precisely, what are you worried about?

I am not worried about your project, as I said, I think this is the right
way of going.

What I am worried about is that "the market" will not understand that what
they do is to do a DNS lookup, when in fact we have an embryo to a
directory search, which leads to a DNS lookup.

I.e. this IS a good start. Don't read me wrongly.

> (draft-klensin-dns-search-00.txt) and we really hope thare will be a
> working group soon so that we can take put these interesting ideas to
> work (BTW, I sent questions and comments to
> [email-masked], but the mailing list seems to still be
> inactive).

I know.

> However, in this implementation, we do not even do a lookup,
> just a transformation. So, I had rather think that John's proposal,
> Keywords and some of the key concepts behind CNRP are the true embryo to
> creating a new layer on top of DNS. This is just a smart server-side fix
> so that IE can behave like the iDN working group would like it to...

Ok, let me then rephrase what I said...and see if this is getting any
better:

When walking down the path towards a directory (serverside) solution, the
words have to be chosen very carefully so people understand when they type
a domainname which is looked up into the DNS system under the root zone
which ICANN takes care of, and when they are not.

   paf

---

From: James Seng/Personal <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 00:01:40 +0800

Nico,

The concern here is that IDN WG is not just about matching (Nameprep)
and wire-encoding (ACE/UTF-8), but also some part which is loosely known
as "IDN Protocol". Thus, support for Nameprep & ACE is definately not
sufficient.

-James Seng

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicolas Popp" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2001 3:15 PM
Subject: Re: CNRP based service?

> (draft-klensin-dns-search-00.txt) and we really hope thare will be a
working

---

From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 11:19:58 -0400

> I.e. this IS a good start. Don't read me wrongly.

And it is a _start_. VeriSign Applied Research is working on exactly
these issues in cooperation with the Registry portion of the company.
It's to early to comment on what that might look like but you can
trust that we're looking at it.

> which ICANN takes care of, and when they are not.

That is a good point and one that John takes care of in his document
by calling anything that inherits names out of the current DNS/ICANN
space as Layer 1 and anything that does not as either Layer 2 or Layer 3.
Something in Layer 2 or Layer 3 can _point_ to some name in Layer 1 but
that's what any application layer protocol does.

-MM

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling                       | mailto:[email-masked]
Advanced Naming Research Manager       | go:Michael Mealling
Verisign Applied Research              | urn:pin:1