Re: [DNSOP] Interim DNSOP WG meeting on Special Use Names: some reading material

["Livingood, Jason" <[e-mail]>]

On 5/6/15, 2:07 PM, "Suzanne Woolf" <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

       c) The requests we're seeing for .onion and the other p2p names already in use are arguing that they should get their names to enable their technologies with minimal disruption to their installed base. While the requesters may well have valid need for the names to be recognized, there is still a future risk of name collision or other ambiguity. The IETF is being asked to recognize the pre-existing use of these names. Does this scale to future requests?

Beyond that, does it end up being a cheap way to avoid the ICANN process of creating a new gTLD. For example, I am not aware that anything prevents the ToR project from applying to ICANN for the .onion gTLD. So from one perspective, would more people just deploy into an unused namespace and then later lay claim the the namespace retroactively based on their use (gTLD-squatting)? This could be quite messy at scale, and I am not sure the IETF has a process to deal with and consider competing uses.

               2. In the particular cases of home/corp/mail, ICANN has studied the possibilities of name collisions, and decided not to delegate those names at this time. The proposal is that the IETF reserve those names for unspecified special use permanently. It seems that an IETF action on those names is redundant, unless it’s in opposition to some action contemplated under ICANN policy (for which there is no apparent mechanism). Is the possibility of the same names considered under multiple policies a problem?

By ‘redundant’ do you mean the IETF should take no action? That seems to leave those names in a no-mans-land that could be problematic in the long-term, and the uncertainty could inhibit experimentation/investment in the home networking space.

I’d rather see the IETF consider these names which are widely used and possibly add them to a new RFC, which then can be entered into and referred to from the IANA special-use domain name registry at http://www.iana.org/assignments/special-use-domain-names/special-use-domain-names.xhtml

               3. An IETF precedent to add names to the special use names registry based on the risk of name collision could easily change the dynamics around namespace policy for TLDs in the root zone, e.g. by providing incentives to “game the system”. Is this acceptable?

It is indeed a risk. But it seems there are some names that have been widely used for some time – and by a wide variety of applications and operators/networks – to make sense for consideration. But I think you are right to point out the risk (see my comments above) - so the IETF should probably have quite simple and brief criteria and try to limit this strictly – and perhaps even make it a one-time activity.

3. Moving forward: What should we do here? What other ideas might be useful? Should we be considering RFC 6761bis? What might an improved registration policy for this registry look like?

Why not just a new RFC? It always seems like a bit of a mess to update such an extensive existing RFC (but I defer to the RFC process gods). ;-)

Jason