Comments Re: C=US; A=IMX: draft-ietf-x400ops-admd-03.txt

[Einar Stefferud <[e-mail]>]

Talking on the phone with Allan Cargille a bit ago, we agreed that the
following comments should be distributed via X400ops, for whatever
they are worth for the IETF discussion next week.  I will be brief.

Our concern is with possible misunderstandings of the context of the
A=IMX actions, and why we are asking the full international X400ops WG
to bless the document.

Here is the context of our request for blessings:

Under X.400, each sovereign nation is expected to unilaterally assign
or register ADMD names in its own nation, and thus control name
assignments in the X.400 ORAddress name space in each nation.

A=IMX is fulfilling this expectation for C=US, in the context of the
"local" C=US national situation.  (ANSI and US-NMTS included).

But, we also recognize that what we are doing has Internet-wide
implications which we may or may not correctly understand and address,
thus we want to subject our A=IMX document to IETF X400ops WG review
and approval, in terms of its international and internetworking
implications.

We do not see that it is of any concern to the IETF X400ops WG as to
how we chose the name "IMX" or whether and how we might register it in
inside C=US.

What we are concerned about is how this might adversely affect
Internet X.400 services in other (non-C=US) parts of the Internet.

Please bear in mind that we do not yet know how to deal with all the
ramifications of interconnection with ADMD services providers, either
in or out of C=US, but we assert that resolving these issues is
independent of our choice of ADMD name, and independent of our choice
for provision of A=IMX PRMD name registration services.

We do find it important for our C=US A=IMX PRMD registry to be
publicly accessible from any point in the Global Internet, so this is
called out for IANA action in the A=IMX draft.

And one more minor note: In C=US, ANSI procedures allow the registrant
of any ANSI MHSMD registered ADMD Name to use it with the "famous"
+constructor syntax to form PRMD names (e.g., P=IMX+nma.com) which
will be guaranteed unique within the A=<space> virtual ADMD in C=US.

And, by our A=IMX rules, these same names will automatically also be
unique without A=IMX if some PRMD operator wishes to use it, but it
will of course need to be registered in the A=IMX PRMD register to be
provided by the IANA.  It should be entirely apparent that only the
owner of nma.com (in this example) will be allowed to register
IMX+nma.com under A=IMX, or under A=<space>, in C=US.

Thus, without any further text included in the A=IMX draft, we expect
to be able to use this ANSI "feature" wherever it makes sense in the
operation of A=IMX or A=<space>.  If at some future time, we discover
a need for additional text to deal with some aspects of this, we will
then generate a new RFC to detail how things must be done.

For now, we want to regard +constructors as a non-issue with regard to
adoption of our A=IMX draft.

Best...\Stef