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RE: [registrars] John Klensin's view on Single-letter second level domains
- To: Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Subject: RE: [registrars] John Klensin's view on Single-letter second level domains
- From: Tim Ruiz <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:14:32 -0700
- Cc: Registrars Constituency <registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Reply-to: Tim Ruiz <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Sender: owner-registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- User-agent: Web-Based Email 4.9.11
<div>
Not advocating anything one way or another, but I don't buy John's
concern below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>> Anyone trying to use one of<BR>
> these labels and making a single-character mistake will
almost<BR>
> certainly reach an unintended host. In a world in which,
for<BR>
> most users, simply opening a web page associated with an
unknown<BR>
> site can be sufficient for virus infection, it is simply
unwise,<BR>
> and IMO, not in the best interests of the Internet, for ICANN
to<BR>
> consider relaxing the current rule. But the reason has
nothing<BR>> to do with DNS expansion, infrastructure, or any other narrowly<BR>> technical reason.<BR></div>
<div>
If I am typing in a 10 character label I have ten times the risk of
mistyping a character than I do when typing in a single character label. The risk he's concerned about has nothing to do with the length of a second level label. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>
Same is true for misuse of IDN characters. If someone is going to click
on links in an email or a web page, they are taking the same risk regardless of the length of the second level label in the URL.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
The solution to either these problems has nothing to do with the
length of second level labels. I hope that as the WG examines this issue it doesn't get sidetracked with these kinds of misconceptions. <BR></div>
<div><BR>Tim <BR></div>
<div name="wmMessageComp"><BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 8px; MARGIN-LEFT: 8px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid">-------- Original Message --------<BR>
Subject: [registrars] John Klensin's view on Single-letter
second<BR>level domains<BR>From: "Bruce Tonkin" <Bruce.Tonkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx><BR>Date: Fri, January 19, 2007 1:51 am<BR>To: "Registrars Constituency" <registrars@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx><BR><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From: Liz Williams<BR>Sent: Friday, 19 January 2007 6:31 PM<BR>To: GNSO Council<BR>Subject: [council] Fwd: Single-letter second level domains<BR><BR>Colleagues<BR><BR>Please find below a note from John Klensin which I received this<BR>morning. He has asked me to forward it to the list.<BR><BR>I will be speaking with John and Steve later today if their schedules<BR>permit.<BR><BR>Liz<BR>.....................................................<BR><BR>Liz Williams<BR>Senior Policy Counselor<BR>ICANN - Brussels<BR>+32 2 234 7874 tel<BR>+32 2 234 7848 fax<BR>+32 497 07 4243 mob<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>Begin forwarded message:<BR><BR>> From: John C Klensin <BR>> Date: Thu 18 Jan 2007 19:26:34 GMT+01:00<BR>> To: liz.williams<BR>><BR>> Subject!
: Single-letter second level domains<BR>><BR>> Liz,<BR>><BR>
> Your recent note to the GNSO Council about single-letter
domains<BR>> (http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg03148.html)<BR>
> and the attached report was just called to my attention.
I'm<BR>
> copying Steve Crocker on this note since the topic is very
much<BR>> a stability issue and not a provision for expansion or<BR>> infrastructure one.<BR>><BR>> The premise of the report, that the main reason for reserving<BR>> single-letter names was to permit future expansion, is not<BR>
> correct. That explanation is, instead, the consequence of
a<BR>
> long-term, and oft-repeated, misunderstanding. I've
tried<BR>> explaining this several time to a number of people and groups<BR>> within ICANN including various senior staff, both of the<BR>> previous IANA managers, and several of the members of the<BR>> community who have been pushing for single-character<BR>> registrations.<BR>><BR>
> The notion that single-character names should be reserved
for<BR>
> expansion of the DNS derives from an almost offhand comment
Jon<BR>
> Postel made many years ago. The essence of the comment
was<BR>> that, given all of the confusion and problems that had been<BR>
> created by trying to associate TLDs with specific semantics,
we<BR>> would have been better off with TLDs named "b ... y" (reserving<BR>
> "a" and "z" for future expansion and because people might
think<BR>
> they had special value). When someone asked for a domain
name<BR>
> at the second level, they would then be randomly assigned to
one<BR>
> of those single-character TLDs. A somewhat fanciful set
of<BR>
> notes circulated for a while that elaborated on this idea.
That<BR>
> document never made it into formal publication although part
of<BR>
> it inspired an alternative option for ENUM that also was
never<BR>
> published. It should be stressed that these ideas were more
of<BR>
> the character of whimsical musings than serious proposals.
They<BR>> were never considered as serious proposals even by their<BR>> originators.<BR>><BR>> In any event, that particular idea about DNS expansion would<BR>
> never have produced "Example.a.com". It might have
produced<BR>
> "example.com.b" (as mentioned above, "a" and "z" were, in
that<BR>
> idea, permanently reserved) or, more likely, "example.d"
or<BR>> "example.cc.b".<BR>><BR>> There was apparently an entirely separate and unrelated<BR>
> suggestion about reserving one-character labels at some level
of<BR>
> the DNS for infrastructure use, much as subdomains of .ARPA
are<BR>
> used today. While I remember hearing about that idea, I
think<BR>> it was just a suggestion made during a meeting or conversation.<BR>
> As far as I know, the suggestion was never written down
or<BR>> explained, much less turned into a proposal that anyone<BR>> considered or approved.<BR>><BR>> The reason for the prohibition on single-character registrations<BR>> was strictly a matter of identifier integrity and DNS stability.<BR>> Specifically, it was intended to reduce the odds of false<BR>
> positive errors if a one-character typing error was made.
The<BR>> prohibition on the use of underscore ("_") in domain names,<BR>> given that hyphen ("-") was going to be permitted, was largely<BR>
> driven by very similar considerations. I believe that,
had we<BR>
> realized that we would end up with millions of names in
some<BR>
> TLDs and almost complete saturation of the two-character
and<BR>> three-character spaces in those TLDs, registration of<BR>
> two-character SLDs probably would have been prohibited as
well.<BR>><BR>> That reason has not changed. If one permits (and encourages,<BR>> which, in today's market, is much the same thing), single-letter<BR>> registrations, it is safe to assume that all 26 labels will<BR>> swiftly be populated (single-digit labels raise some additional<BR>
> issues because they are very easily used in certain types
of<BR>
> tricky-syntax phishing attacks). Anyone trying to use one
of<BR>
> these labels and making a single-character mistake will
almost<BR>
> certainly reach an unintended host. In a world in which,
for<BR>
> most users, simply opening a web page associated with an
unknown<BR>
> site can be sufficient for virus infection, it is simply
unwise,<BR>
> and IMO, not in the best interests of the Internet, for ICANN
to<BR>
> consider relaxing the current rule. But the reason has
nothing<BR>> to do with DNS expansion, infrastructure, or any other narrowly<BR>> technical reason.<BR>><BR>
> Just as we try to learn and extrapolate from our experience
with<BR>> ASCII domain name labels to IDNs, we should also take advantage<BR>> of our experience with IDNs to inform our decisions about<BR>
> possible changes to rules about ASCII labels. When the
example<BR>> of the "paypal" domain (with Cyrillic "a"s) was widely<BR>> publicized, one of the primary reactions in the user and<BR>
> observer communities was outrage that the various actors in
the<BR>> domain name environment (and the certificate-issuing<BR>
> environment) had permitted a registration whose obvious
purpose<BR>
> was to make it easy for users to make a potentially nasty
and<BR>
> identity-compromising mistake. I don't believe we need
that<BR>> lesson again about single-character SLDs.<BR>><BR>> Please forward this message as appropriate -- I don't believe<BR>> that I can post to the Council list.<BR>><BR>> regards,<BR>> john<BR>> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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