Re: [DNSOP] Tell me about the ISO 3166 user assigned two-letter codes and TLDs

[Edward Lewis <[e-mail]>]

On 9/29/16, 03:27, "DNSOP on behalf of John Levine" <[e-mail] on behalf of [e-mail]> wrote:

> Last year Ed Lewis wrote an I-D proposing that XA-XZ be made private use and the rest future use, but as far as I can tell it never went anywhere.

I'd been waiting for anyone else to show an interest in it before spending any time on it.  This is the first mention I've seen on a public list about the draft. ;)

As David wrote in a later message, the dam burst on Special Use Domain Name registry discussions.
   
>I've been telling people that if they need a fake private TLD for their local network they should use one of those since it is exceedingly unlikely ever to collide with a real DNS name.  Am I right?
    
I'd have to say not right to be "telling people".  The one option you have is ".example", unfortunately (and in sympathy) I don't have a better suggestion.

Heuristically, you might be okay using these codes but it's that same-old-same-old problem of assuming the future.  My preference would be to put the appropriate codes in to the Special Use Domain Name registry before "telling people".  I stress the "telling people" because you using ".qy" isn't ever going to come to harm (because you can change that "if").

BTW, the user assigned two-letter codes are not the same as unassigned codes. These have been expressly set aside for local use, these codes aren't eligible for use in any other way, no matter what a new region might call itself.  That is, it's more likely some other novel use for one of these codes might be found than the code ever matching an economy's identifier.