Re: [DNSOP] More after onion? was Re: Some distinctions and a request

(no hats, for the moment)

Ed,

It seems to me that this is exactly the issue: we've already had multiple drafts requesting new entries in the special use names registry, and expect more. Your note sounds as if you're fairly sanguine about "a stream of unpredictable requests"; however, based on what we've seen so far, I admit I'm not.

I'm still re-immersing in DNSOP after being entirely absorbed in other work the last couple of weeks, but I want to support us continuing this discussion, because it seems to me that the point Andrew started the thread to make is valid: we don't have a coherent view of how the relevant namespaces (based on DNS protocol, compatible with DNS protocol but intended for different protocol use, or otherwise) interact. 

The painful immediate consequence is that we're trying to apply RFC 6761 and finding that it remains subjective to do so, with an element of "beauty contest" in the deliberations that means outcomes are unpredictable. There's no meaningful guidance we can give developers on what names it's "safe" for them to use in new protocols, or even for specific uses in-protocol, and as Andrew and others have pointed out, there may even be ambiguity about what our own registries mean in protocol or operational terms. 

Longer term, this lack of clarity has implications for both architecture and policy for the DNS, including our ability to support innovation and to coordinate with other groups in the IETF and beyond.

best,
Suzanne

On Jul 1, 2015, at 8:26 AM, Edward Lewis <edward.lewis@icann.org> wrote:

> On 7/1/15, 1:47, "DNSOP on behalf of str4d" <dnsop-bounces@ietf.org on
> behalf of str4d@i2pmail.org> wrote:
>> .onion and .i2p (and to my knowledge, the other proposed P2P-Names
>> TLDs too) have to conform to DNS rules in order to be usable in legacy
>> applications that expect domain names.
> 
> I'd been told that "onion." was a one-time thing, that in the future
> conflicts wouldn't happen.  What I read in the quoted message is that
> "onion."'s request isn't a one-time thing but a sign of things to come.
> 
> I'm sympathetic to the use the path of least resistance - e.g., use names
> that syntactically are DNS names - instead of building a separate
> application base.  I expect innovation to be free-form and thus a stream
> of unpredictable requests to reserve names for special purposes, including
> DNS-like names.
> 
> What DNSOP can comment on is how the DNS "reacts" to names, whether in
> protocol or operational convention, once they are known before they
> achieve some degree of widespread adoption. To what extent is an effort
> made (by whomever) to detect these budding namespaces, is this proactive?
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