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Report of the Internationalized Domain Names Working Group–Responses to Survey A

Posted: 28 August 2001




Appendix—Responses to Survey A: Technical Questions

1. What different technologies currently enable the use of non-Latin scripts as domain names?

WALID

WALID, Inc. (WALID) considers that the deployed or proposed approaches to Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) have focused mainly on four approaches:

  • Upgrading the DNS protocol in certain ways to support the tagging of UTF-8 or codepage data in DNS packets, typically using some of the as-yet unused bits in the DNS packet header. This has been proposed in a number of IETF Internet-Drafts;
  • Sending UTF-8 or codepage data (sometimes unmarked) on the wire using the existing protocol, and upgrading the authoritative DNS servers to store and process that data;
  • Sending UTF-8 or codepage data (sometimes unmarked) to a DNS proxy server or other network agent, which performs an ACE transformation on the data and then presents the encoded name to the DNS for resolution;
  • Performing ACE transformations directly on the DNS client node, in the resolver and/or the application layer. WALID is in favor of this approach to IDNs, and the approach is embodied in WALID's WorldConnect™ technology. Recently, other technology providers have begun to produce similar products.
Verisign

Standards to enable the use of non-Latin scripts as domain names have not been finalized. Broadly speaking, three different methods are currently in use:

1. Domain names are sent in a local encoding (such as GB, BIG5, SJIS, etc.)

2. Domain names are sent in a Unicode Transformation Format, such as UTF-8.

3. Domain names are converted to a "safe" representation using only the subset of ASCII characters currently supported by the Internet's infrastructure before sending.

VeriSign Global Registry Services (VeriSign GRS) will conform its testbed to whatever standard emerges from the IETF process.

Neteka

There are in general three approaches to multilingualize the domain name system:

  • Brute Force Approach - the DNS was designed to transport domain name characters in unsigned octets. Therefore, the protocol itself is actually capable of carrying 8bit information. The reason for restricting it to the US-ASCII scheme is simply for backward compatibility issues at the time it was devised. While the DNS has been arbitrarily constrained to English only alphanumeric names, implementers were not advised to reject names outside of the constraints, because the DNS will ultimately determine the existence of a domain name through its hierarchical search. It is possible therefore to force 8bit character information (such as UTF-8 or local encoding schemes: Big5, GB, JIS, etc.) through the DNS and existing implementation experiments indicate that root servers and middle-wares are usually unaffected.
  • Protocol Extension Approach - An approach to solve the multilingual DNS problem is to introduce additional flagging or tags within the DNS packet to alert servers of the encoding scheme used by the request. Whether it is an encoding tag or simply a multilingual flag, the protocol approach utilizes the bit format within the existing DNS packet to notify the receiving end of the context of the domain name in question. A number of drafts have been proposed at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) discussion on multilingual domain names, including the DNSII mechanism [DNSII-MDNP], utilization of EDNS to signify multilingual labels [IDNE], use of the reserved header bits [UDNS] as well as the introduction of a new DNS class for universal characters [ClassUC]. While there are relative advantages for the different proposals, DNSII supports the use of multiple encoding schemes, IDNE utilizes the newly standardized EDNS mechanism for DNS extensions, UDNS makes it possible for information to be tunneled all the way to the authoritative server and the introduction of Class UC could effectively create a coherent but entirely new namespace.
  • ASCII Conversion Approach - The allocation of pain, or in other words where most effort for the use of multilingual domain names should be put drives the discussion towards an ASCII conversion approach whereby the legacy servers and transportation protocol does not need to change and that all multilingual character information are transformed into ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) formatted DNS requests. The assumption for an ASCII conversion approach is that all existing users on the Internet would upgrade to a multilingual aware DNS resolver, which would perform a standardized transformation mechanism to transform multilingual characters into alphanumeric strings that would fit into the original DNS specifications. In addition to transforming the multilingual characters to ASCII strings, an in-label identifier is usually appended to the domain name. For example, the Row-based ASCII Compatible Encoding [RACE] scheme, calls for the use of a "bq--" prefix. The common objective for all ACE schemes is to represent multilingual characters in alphanumeric form, fitting names within the current character constraints of the DNS. Each has a slightly different transformation mechanism, from a simple hex dump such as TRACE [DNSII-TRACE], to multiple compression scheme approach such as RACE.

Besides the three main approaches, it is also possible to have a hybrid approach that mixes and matches the different technologies. It is also Neteka's opinion that the best strategy forward to deploy multilingual domain names consists of a hybrid of all three approaches and contemplates a phased transition:

  • Short-term: Brute force approach - with the brute force approach, registries could immediately offer functional multilingual domain names to satisfy user demand. Neteka's technology allow the use of UTF8 as well as any other local encoding schemes (Big5, GB, JIS, KUC, etc.) to be resolved at the server without requiring any client side reconfiguration or plug-in.
  • Mid-term: ASCII Conversion approach - a server end ASCII conversion approach is best used as a consolidation strategy for the different IDN solutions. It offers a common platform for the convergence of the technologies and provides a smooth transition and migration from the existing system (including with brute force multilingual), to a longer-term solution. Neteka's technology utilizes both RACE and TRACE as a platform for administration for multilingual names in brute force format, ASCII converted format as well as protocol extension (mode bit flagging) format.
  • Long-term: Protocol Extension approach - for a longer-term solution, a protocol extension mechanism is generally considered the best approach because it eliminates ambiguity by clearly identifying multilingual names and does not compromise the efficiency of the domain system. Neteka's technology employs the DNSII bit flagging approach as well as the EDNS approach to transport and identify multilingual requests. The DNSII approach also allows the tagging of the encoding of the requested string, making it more precise and effective.

With all three approaches pre-installed into Neteka's NeDNS, it is immediately deployable as a server end solution for registries to offer multilingual names, and prepared for the migration towards a longer-term solution, whatever stream it might turn out to be.

Register.com

Two general types of technologies attempt to enable the use of non-Latin scripts as domain names. The first of these approaches involves the transmission of native encodings as part of the DNS labels used within queries and/or responses. Native encodings are character encodings, such as ISO-foo or Shift-JIS used to represent non-Latin scripts. These encodings are generally 8-bit and always involve the use of characters outside those permitted within DNS labels by RFC 1034 [RFC1034].

The second type of approach is the conversion of IDNs into a domain name that conforms with RFC 1034. These approaches involve the use of ASCII-compatible encodings (ACEs) of non-Latin scripts. Generally, ACE-based proposals involve both the compression of non-ASCII data as well as a transformation into an RFC 1034 compliant string.

For both of these approaches, various parties have proposed a variety of specific implementations. Internet Drafts currently describe several ACEs, as well as various approaches that describe the use of ACEs within various parts of the DNS. Different approaches using 8-bit character transmissions within the DNS have also been described, including on-the-wire transmission of native encodings as well as common formats such as UTF-8.

Finally, some more radical approaches, such as the creation of a new DNS class or the use of a new directory layer to replace traditional DNS functionality, have been suggested.

JPNIC We follow IETF IDN WG discussion. Application solution complies the IDNA architecture, with NAMEPREP and ACE.
TWNIC

(1) Interim case:

a. Using NAMEPREP to convert IDN into English domain name (ACE encoding) for IDN resolving.

b. Setting up DNS (web) proxy to support IDN resolving. The DNS (web) proxy convert IDN into English domain name.

c. Supporting various zone file encoding in server side.

(2) Test bed case:

a. Modifying BIND software to support clean 8 bits (native encoding) and UTF-8 encoding.

b. Modifying related software: Apache, Squid, etc., to support clean 8 bits (native encoding) and UTF-8 encoding.

Brunner Williams

Two basic mechanisms enable the use of non-Latin scripts as domain names:

  1. encapsulated transport of extensions to the standard ASCII LDH character repetoire, also called "ASCII Compatible Extension" labels ("ACE labels"), but more correctly described as "Encodings Contained in ASCII", and

  2. native transport of extensions to the standard character repetoire, also called "binary labels", and "utf-8 labels".

Both mechanisms rely upon the Universal Character Set (UCS) for a single ASCII preserving character set containing a large, but incomplete, repetoire of non-Latin characters.

Anonymous B
  1. Adopting "multi 8-bit encoding" solution
  2. Adopting ACE solution
  3. Adopting "Directory" Solution
  4. Adopting EDNS resolution
Malenfant Favorite is ACE
i-DNS.net

It is our understanding that the following are the more well known technology providers in the Multilingual (ML) field:

  • i-DNS.net
  • Alldomains.com
  • CNNIC
  • JPNIC
  • NativeNames
  • Neteka
  • NU/WorldNames
  • ThaiURL
  • TUCOWS/Open SRS
  • TWNIC
  • WALID

Status Report: Server-based, client-based and hybrids


2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the technologies referenced in Question 1? Please give concrete examples.

WALID

A number of the proposed approaches described above treat the problem of IDN as if it were a 'DNS protocol problem', instead of a 'domain name problem'. That is to say, if the DNS protocol or infrastructure can be changed to support non-Latin scripts, then the problem would be solved. The rough consensus of the technical community, however, is that this approach is fundamentally incorrect, and perhaps the approach stems from a view that the only applications running on the Internet that need to be considered are web browsers and web servers (and sometimes only particular web browsers or servers).

WALID would suggest that any approach to IDNs must take into account the entire deployed base of protocols, applications, and implementations that run on the Internet today, many of which are crucial for ensuring the stability, security, and operation of the network. Many of these protocols and implementations will not support characters outside of the LDH (letters, digits, and hyphen) set, either in forward or reverse resolution contexts.

These fundamental issues aside, approaches that focus on changes to the infrastructure, either by deploying a new protocol, new servers, or new types of server applications face the inertia associated with the deployed nameservice infrastructure. The DNS is everywhere, and attempting to make significant changes to the DNS as a whole would likely take at least a decade for complete deployment, risking the creation of islands of dis-connectivity in the process. Infrastructure-based approaches also suffer from the problem that updates are difficult to deploy. In this respect, one need only consider the large numbers of very old BIND distributions still in operation with serious known security vulnerabilities.

The approaches above that would send Unicode data directly (typically in the UTF-8 encoding) also ignore the issues relating to name equivalence, and ultimately would create a serious security problem, given that many applications and protocols rely on the DNS for performing authentication and authorization checks. Many Unicode codepoint sequences, which are visually identical, can be different at a binary level, creating the opportunity for a malicious user to fool someone into connecting to a different host than the one they think they are connecting to. At a more basic level, without some sort of canonicalization step during resolution, many users will have a difficult time making IDNs work reliably. Within the IETF, this requirement has been called the 'business card test'.

WALID's approach to IDNs, currently in use as part of the VeriSign GRS multilingual testbed, is to perform a canonicalization and transformation process of the IDNs on the end user's system. IDNs are normalized to address the equivalence problem described above, and encoded using a transformation algorithm from Unicode into the subset of ASCII permitted in DNS host labels. IDNs that are presented to the DNS for resolution thus use the same range of characters as standard domain names. The significant advantage to this approach is that no changes are made to the deployed base of infrastructure systems, and the operational stability of the network is not compromised. Our experience in working with ccTLD registries has shown that infrastructure-based approaches, by contrast, are quite unworkable, both because of the inertia associated with the DNS resolution infrastructure and the large numbers of web proxy servers that are on the network.

To deploy the ACE-based approach completely, applications which process DNS hostnames will need to be upgraded to handle IDNs. In the short-term, a mechanism must be widely deployed to enable immediate resolution of IDNs in the applications that end-users use most often, such as web browsers and e-mail applications. WALID is addressing these needs by making freely available for download its WALID WorldConnect™ technology, to enable immediate resolution of IDNs, and its WALID WorldApp™ to enable application developers to incorporate standard IDN transformation capabilities into their applications.

Verisign

Methods one and two above involve an application sending binary (i.e., non-ASCII) data through an infrastructure not designed to handle it, which certainly has the potential to cause problems. Application protocols, such as SMTP, call for domain names to be encoded in ASCII. Not all DNS resolvers and name servers are "8-bit clean" (i.e., able to handle binary data without issues). The deployed base is huge, with endless combinations of components, and it is impossible to test every scenario for its ability to handle binary data. We do not know of any completed studies, although MINC is planning such testing. (Please see http://www.minc.org/WG/testing/interop/.)

For this reason, the IETF Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Working Group has focused on the Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) solution, which involves transforming internationalized domain names (as described in method three above) at the application level, so that they can be sent in application protocols and through the Internet's DNS infrastructure in a known safe format.

Neteka

Brute Force Approach - The advantage of this approach is that multilingual names could be deployed immediately at the server end to parse the multilingual name information and be reachable by a good percentage of users over the Internet. However there are with it also a considerable number of disadvantages that could cause inconsistent responses. These include character encoding conflicts as well as proxy and application blockages. Character encoding conflict is one that is particular prominent. The same encoding value could represent entirely different characters if a different encoding scheme is used. Conversely as well, the same characters might be represented with different encoding values under different schemes. Both of these issues lead to problems for the DNS where names must be unique and that the user expects to be transported to the same domain regardless of their input mechanism.

Protocol Extension Approach - The common advantage of using a protocol approach is that the efficiency of the DNS is not compromised at all and that there will be no ambiguity as to the exact characters a domain name query is referring to. Also, with the introduction of an extension, versioning and future extensions could also be built in. In essence, a protocol extension approach is generally considered a better long-term solution for multilingual domain names. The common disadvantage of the protocol approach however is that it requires changes and upgrades from both the server-end as well as the client/application-end. This may result in the slower adoption of the system.

ASCII Conversion Approach - The most prominent advantage for using an ASCII conversion scheme is that no changes is necessary in the server end because they will continue to expect and react to request that are formatted within the specifications of the original DNS standards. Conversely, the major disadvantage is that users that wish to use multilingual domain names must consciously upgrade their software to be able to reach the multilingual domains. The average user however is not likely to be technically sophisticated and would expect multilingual domain names to function the same as English only ones. Also, it introduces an additional procedure in domain resolution and takes away the feature of the DNS to keep the transportation format consistent with the presentation format of domain names.

Hybrid Solution - It makes most economical sense for implementers to tackle the issue with an all inclusive hybrid approach because the efforts in development of the solution will not become totally emaciated. On one hand, the inclusion of a brute force approach ensures that once multilingual domains are deployed, a good number of users could immediately be able to access and utilize these names. On the other hand, more alert or early adopters would likely embrace the ACE technology and already have converters installed, therefore, to take care of these requests, the database should include an ACE formatted record. Finally, the system should be made aware of eventual protocol approach where the incoming packet would effectively announce the exact encoding scheme and format of the multilingual name. By developing a three-fold strategy, the implementer may be able to assure that it will be prepared for any situation that might transpire out of the dynamic standardization process now underway.

As the Internet matures, it should no longer be a purely technology push mechanism for implementing new features, but should also consider the customer pull factor. In the hybrid deployment model, first the brute force approach is used so that registries could begin allowing registrants to obtain functional multilingual domains and use them immediately without any client-end reconfiguration. Only the registry name servers and the registrant's hosting server needs to be upgraded. As the need for accessing multilingual domains increase, users will be more aware and knowledgeable of using the ACE approach, which will make provides a good consolidation towards a common protocol and makes administration much easier. Eventually, this would encourage middleware and other applications to upgrade to the protocol approach to make the entire process much more efficient and truly multilingual aware.

Register.com

The advantage of 8-bit character transmission is that these approaches seem to be the most simple and elegant solutions. These approaches allow fairly direct representations of IDNs and may allow DNS data to be human-readable for those with terminals capable of recognizing and displaying the relevant character encodings. Unfortunately, although the DNS protocol itself allows for the transmission of 8-bit domain name data, many of the application protocols that rely on the DNS were not designed to handle such domain name data, and these protocols would likely need to be individually re-designed in order to provide IDN capability.

ACE-based approaches generally provide a high degree of compatibility, because they continue to use RFC 1034 compliant labels to represent all DNS data. Some ACE-based approaches have been designed which move all IDN work to the application or local resolver, and as a result require no modification of the name servers which are currently running. Such an approach allows individual users to essentially "opt-in" to the use of IDNs by installing updated software on their computers without impacting other users or affecting the stability of the network at large.

The more radical approaches mentioned above offer the potential for significant elegance and potentially large amounts of innovation, but the time to implement such solutions is likely to be unacceptably long.

JPNIC Strengths: It can be realized with current protocols.
Weakness: It reduces the string size of each label. It requires character set / encoding conversion.
TWNIC

Test bed case has the following strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths:

(1) It does not need to download client software.

(2) It does not need to proceed ACE conversion on client side.

(3) The zone file is readable for administrator. It is easy to maintain zone file.

Weaknesses:

(1) Some Chinese characters contain '\' '@' codes that makes Internet application confused.

(2) Applications (like Bind, apache, firewall...etc) do not support clean 8 bits DNS data.

Brunner Williams

The label length is limited to 63 bytes.

ACE allows up to 17 to 19 characters under the best conditions. UTF8 allows 21 or more characters.

Labels are "visible" outside of the resolver-nameserver context, e.g., in email headers and bodies.

ACE is not ASCII preserving, ACE transformations of names containing Latin characters not in ASCII, or non-Latin characters, bear no resemblance to the original name, even if only one non-ASCII character is present, e.g., umlaut.

This feature is absent with UTF8, due to its ASCII preserving property.

Labels are "processed" outside of the resolver-nameserver context, e.g., in email headers.

ACE encapsulates extensions to ASCII in ASCII, resulting in no requirement for change to infrastructure such as mail transport agents which route mail based upon domain names in mail headers.

UTF8 requires changes to infrastructure such as mail transport agents which route mail based upon domain names in mail headers. This change is frequently described as "8 bit clean processing".

Anonymous B

a. Advantages: Break through the limitation of current DNS protocol and size of domain names
Disadvantages: Alters the DNS and relevant applications

b. Advantages: No need to alter the current DNS, a technology with good interoperability.
Disadvantages: Alters relevant application of DNS, awkward expressive performance in displaying and relevant applications, has more limitation on the length of domain names.

c. Advantages: Leave some of the difficult problems on the representation layer
Disadvantages: Need to modify applications related to DNS, need to add additional directory inquiring transactions.

d. Disadvantages: the application scale is not broad.

Malenfant
  • DNS clients ACE unaware would look up entries exactly

  • DNS clients ACE aware, would display IDN characters, but convert and submit transparently in ACE format

  • DNS servers would be ACE unaware, and simply store ACE entries "as is", therefore requiring no change
i-DNS.net

i-DNS.net's technology has been active on the Internet for 3 years, beginning with a Pan-Asian test bed strategy; we stand behind our product which we can say with confidence, that it runs across the current Internet without causing it to break.

i-DNS.net is the Technology Enabler and Resolution Partner-of-Choice to VGRS in the Multilingual Testbed. Our technology is in use by major Registrars like Register.com, Melbourne IT (INWW), interQ; as well as ccTLD Registrars handling .tv, .cc, .com.au, .la and .ai.

We have established affiliations with industry organizations (IETF, APNG, APTLD, APIA, PBEC, W3C) and in-country players worldwide. Most importantly, i-DNS.net is the pioneer of the Internationalized Domain Name System (iDNS), the First Registry for Fully Multilingual Domain Names, the industry leader in terms of market penetration and has the longest operating track record since 1999.

As part of our corporate objectives, we aim to provide a technology that remains compliant with the workings of the IETF; right now this means Client side and ACE based, and I-DNS.net technology is fully compliant with this.

WALID have patented an IDN client solution and we understand this has raised some concerns to the IETF IDN working Group.

Native Names (and a few others) provide Server Side solutions only, are would (in our opinion) not be compliant with IETF.

Status Report: Server-based - no client intervention required but long assimilation by servers worldwide. Client-based - NAMEPREPed on application, as per IETF but require installation.

3. Are there more problems relating to particular scripts? Why?

WALID The IETF IDN Working Group and the Unicode Consortium have been investigating the complexities associated with introducing non-Latin scripts into the context of DNS hostnames, and attempting to ensure that end-user expectations are met. We fully support the work of these two expert organizations in this area.
Verisign Experts in these languages and scripts are in the best position to answer this question.
Neteka In general, scripts with more local encoding schemes are more problematic initially for quick deployment of multilingual domain names. Other language issues are local script dependent. For example, there is the traditional and simplified Chinese issue. Part of the debate is whether a folding or mapping should occur automatically and built into the IDN protocol. This coupled with conflicting local character encoding schemes also makes the deployment of Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts more difficult. Neteka's perspective on the Chinese character folding issue is that it should be a policy matter and controlled during registration and be dependent on the registry policy. ICANN should however provide guidelines as to what the issues are and suggest a number of alternatives to solve the problem. Other languages also have their own language issues such as Arabic, where spaces within phrases changes the meaning and the form of a character, Hebrew where characters could be omitted, etc.
Register.com Essentially, the more different scripts are from traditional Latin scripts, the more likely problems are to occur. Languages such as Chinese and others that use the Han ideographs can be problematic due to the sheer size of the character repertoire. Some languages have a large number of encodings to represent essentially the same character set, which can make it problematic to identify and transform raw data into a common, universally understood format.
JPNIC ACE requires Unicode as its base character set, but many PCs use local character set such as JIS. It causes normalization problems due to character set conversion, that is 1 to N mapping.
TWNIC The second byte of Big5 encoding characters include ASCII encoding range, it may make DNS response error data (DNS software is case sensitive in ascii character)
Brunner Williams

European scripts, normally comprehensible with diacritical simplification become "ASCII gibberish" under ACE transformation.

Scripts which use European characters and non-European characters have very poor ACE length properties, as ACE length optimization relies upon code page utilization.

Anonymous B

a. Sequence of Chinese Domain names: Chinese language is totally different from Latin in word and sentence structure.

b. The Simplified - Original Chinese character mapping: Chinese characters have two writing forms to which corresponding each other. For Chinese people, this kind of correspondence is as same important as the Case folding to ASCII domain name users.

c. The correspondence between "." & "?". The presence of such problem is due to the characteristics of Chinese input method, and the problem should be resolved to fulfill users' needs.

Malenfant

multiple endcodings (e.g. traditional and simplified Chinese, Arabic space phrasing, Hebrew omitted characters), could be resolved by manual entry of the multuple versions into the DNS at registration time

i-DNS.net

The IETF working group places special emphasis on conversion from Localè Unicode à ACE. It is script (not language) based, and the NAMEPREP process deals to the various nuances of each script. Standing back, we see the following issues

Some scripts have no INPUT METHOD ENGINE (IME) which means that it is impossible to enter the language into the computer (e.g. some Indian scripts) Along a similar theme, some script lack a font renderer, so they cannot easily be displayed on the screen

Some languages have yet to have standardized scripts

Some languages have multiple scripts; in which case NAMEPREP needs to support consistent canonicalization and be case-folding (often an area of political debate amongst different linguists)

Status Report: As above

4. To the extent there are weaknesses in the technologies, what groups are working to develop solutions?

WALID

The group most active in addressing the need for technical standards to support IDNs is the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF IDN Working Group has made considerable progress in the past year in defining an overall set of technical and operational requirements for internationalized domain names, has vetted a broad set of technical proposals, and has chosen an approach consistent with those requirements. Many IETF participants are also active in the Unicode Consortium, the W3C, and other standards bodies, and the IETF IDN Working Group and IDN community as a whole benefits from their experience, coordination, and support.

The Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) has also been active in developing policy in the IDNs area, as well as providing a forum for performing interoperability testing. While this has been somewhat less successful, MINC provides a good forum for representing the interests and needs of its broad constituency and can support the efforts of the IETF and other technical standards bodies. As MINC moves forward with its mandate, we expect to see MINC play an important role in supporting the deploying of internationalized domain names and in promoting cooperation, compliance, and interoperability between the systems that are deployed today.

Verisign We share the opinion of others in the IETF IDN Working Group that the issue that should be tackled is internationalizing domain names, not internationalizing the DNS protocol. Thus the issue is broader than some "quick fixes" or partial solutions advocated by some technology providers, such as simply upgrading DNS clients and servers. Any complete IDN solution must involve end-user applications, such as web browsers, as well. The IDN Working Group is developing standards for IDN and is, we believe, the primary focal point for a complete solution.
Neteka

Neteka's DNSII (www.dnsii.org) and OpenIDN (www.openidn.org) initiatives encourage and allow more people to be involved in this important transition on one of the core technologies of the Internet. DNSII is a forum for discussing different multilingual approaches and currently archives Neteka's proposals. OpenIDN is an open source multilingual DNS, allowing interested parties to tryout using multilingual names as well as the source code to enhance the features on their own.

IETF is mainly concerned with the protocol and tries to determine which approach to use and what the eventual format should look like.

MINC is a quasi-iDNS initiative started by iDNS advocates. The discussion includes both protocol issues as well as language or policy issues. In Neteka's perspective, both these functions are already carried out by IETF and ICANN and the responsibility should really go back to these two bodies for a more comprehensive points of views of the problems therefore providing better results.

Register.com The IETF continues to work on a variety of issues surrounding the IDN problem space.
JPNIC JPNIC IDN Taskforce, JP-CN-KR-TW NIC's Joint Engineering Team and IETF IDN WG.
TWNIC TWNIC Chinese technology task force, CDNC, JET, IETF.. etc.
Brunner Williams

The Unicode Technical Committee and ISO JTC1/SC2/WG2 (character sets) and JTC1/SC2/WG22 (internationalization) are working on deficiencies in the ISO 10646 character repetoire, normalization, and canonicalization.

The IETF IDN Working Group is working on the name preparation (nameprep) step. It is also working on selection of the better ACE algorithm, and on the infrastructural work UTF8 requires.

The W3C Internationalization Activity is working on internationalization of the URI namespace.

Anonymous B IETF-IDN, CDNC, JET, MINC, I-DNS, VeriSign, etc.
i-DNS.net

There are 2 key groups focusing on solution, each working at different levels. I-DNS.net is an active contributor to both groups.

IETF (working on technical standards)

MINC/AINC (working on operational policies)

Status Report: Also, UC, CDNC. Some suggest local/regional control over problems specific to particular language/region

5. What are the different solutions under consideration? Which are the most promising? How much longer will it take to develop a solution that works?

WALID

The current proposal before the IETF IDN working group is "Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)." From a technical standpoint, we understand that the WG has established rough consensus around the core concepts of normalization and transformation taking place within the application. Assuming that certain non-technical issues are resolved, the IETF could have a standard ready by the end of 2001.

The consensus in the IETF IDN working group is not complete, however, and some have suggested that the working group is failing to consider questions relating to language and language use, and the expectations of end-users of the DNS. While these questions are certainly important, we are not convinced that they concern issues that can or should be solved by the DNS. Many participants feel that these questions are outside of the scope of the charter of the IETF IDN working group, which is focused on enabling use of non-Latin scripts in the DNS, and thus should be addressed separately.

Verisign The work of the IDN Working Group is public; more information is available at http://www.i-d-n.net/. The most promising proposal is called IDNA (Internationalized Domain Names in Applications), which calls for applications to convert IDNs to an ASCII-only "safe" format using an ACE (ASCII Compatible Encoding). More details are available in the IDNA Internet-Draft at http://www.i-d-n.net/draft/draft-ietf-idn-idna-01.txt.
Neteka

IETF - while a good number of proposals have been presented to the IETF, until recently, discussions surround the IDNA (IDN Applications) approach. This however collides with a patent issued to Walid. Recent discussions have included ways to work around the patent as well as hybrid approaches.

Neteka - Neteka is a proponent of a hybrid approach to ensure that the migration is transparent to the end user and smooth for the operators. We believe this is the most promising approach in that it already works for the majority of the people on the Internet immediately. It also provides a clear path towards the longer-term approach where the entire Internet will become fully multilingual aware. Neteka's system is also compatible with email addressing systems and Neteka already have the technology also to introduce multilingual email addresses.

iDNS - the iDNS Proxy solution assumes that multilingual domain names are redirected to the iDNS servers for resolution. This creates a bottleneck for the system and introduces unnecessary complications.

WorldNames - as far as Neteka's understanding, WorldNames' NUBIND, currently implemented at the dotNU registry, is essentially a redirector technology and multilingual names registered using this system could not be utilized for email addresses.

Register.com As indicated above, there are a number of solutions currently under consideration. Currently, the [IDNA] solution proposed within the IETF's IDN working group seems extremely promising; recently, however, intellectual property concerns have slowed the development of that particular approach. More generally, ACE-based solutions seem to generally have the greatest traction and operational experience to date, and the advantages that they yield in backwards compatibility is probably a strong argument in their favor. A final solution to this problem space still seems to be at least six months away.
JPNIC None other than the above is thought of.
TWNIC

(1) UNAME:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-idn-uname-00.txt
Common Name Resolution Protocol + DNS solution:http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-cnrp-09.txt

(2) Depending on when IETF finalize the RFC, after that, it would take 1 or 2 years.

Brunner-Williams

See question 1. The most promising approach is binary labels with nameprep. This has been implemented and deployed in the .CN ccTLD. To fully, globally provide IDNs seamless, requires changes to host operating systems and to core internet infrastructure. The general rule for major feature changes to operating system products is one or more years after announcement to new feature general availability, and one or more years after announcement to old feature withdrawal.

The time-to-market period is shortened by incorrectly posing the question in the form of a surf-the-web model. The internet is more than the web.

Anonymous B

a. Multi 8-bit encoding (long term) need to renew all the DNS and relevant applications

b. ACE (short term) need to renew all the applications related to DNS

c. Directory Services (long term) need to renew all the applications related to DNS

Malenfant ACE type encoding
i-DNS.net

We see the IETF IDN group as THE focal point for development of standards, and so far they have made considerable progress. They have made the strategic choice of Client vs. Server side (Easier to implement, and in line with IETF philosophy that the Internet is a dumb network carrying bits - intelligence is located on the edge.

They have also worked out how to convert local language into ASCII form for carrying over the net. Localè Unicode à ACE, and the I-DNS technology solution is compliant with this. We believe the approach set out by IETF works NOW - our technology uses it and resolves across the Internet.

We believe that there will never be "just one solution" or "just one standard". Rather we see that over time, the basic approach adopted today by IETF will be refined, even improved, much as the Internet has improved over time. Standardisation is not a "first past the post" race, rather it is a process of continual improvement, based upon as sound strategy - which we believe is more or less in place through the IETF IDN.

Critical to any solution provider will be that their solutions are "interoperable" with other providers. Critical to any customer, is that they are aligned with a technology provider that keeps their solution in line with standards as they develop.

i-DNS.net is a Technology Partner to VGRS and its iDNS, and our technology is compliant with the current standards as defined by the IETF working group.

Status Report: IETF (IDNA), WALID (patent), Neteka (working on hybrid client/server)

6. Currently there are no accepted standards for IDN. Is this because there are competing technologies, or because the underlying problem is sufficiently difficult that a "best" solution has not yet emerged?

WALID WALID believes that competition is a healthy and necessary part of the development of any emerging industry, and a useful tool for providing real-world experience concerning the viability of various approaches to solving a given technical problem. The 'IDN Subject' is certainly a complex one, and some have characterized it as one of the most difficult challenges that the Internet technical standards community has faced. The IETF and other standards bodies have made extremely good progress in addressing it within a relatively short time.
Verisign The IETF IDN Working Group is moving relatively quickly to produce an IDN standard.
Neteka

While competing technologies imply that there is no defacto standard, it is because some initial attempts are not satisfactory that competing technologies arise. This is therefore a multifold issue: first of all there is a differing opinion on what the "best" solution should be. The underlying problem is sufficiently difficult in that there has to be compromises and a decision could only be made based on giving more consideration to some key issues and focusing less on others. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to build a consensus on which among the many issues should these "key issues" be. There are really three main camps:

a. System administrators/operators - this group generally has the view that the allocation of pain should be on the user and that it is absolutely important that the servers are not threatened by multilingual requests even though they might not break down. They also view that server-side migration would be lengthy.

b. End users - there are two groups within this sector: the registrants and the users of domain names. Both of these groups are eager to have functional multilingual domain names without requiring client reconfiguration. They expect multilingual names to work exactly like English only names and will be confused and frustrated if they are not. They are also technically less sophisticated and may not understand why and what needs to be done to get multilingual names working. Therefore they also believe that the allocation of pain should be on the server end where the technical expertises are.

c. Technologists - these are the design engineers and architects who believe that a long-term solution should be made extensible and cater not only the operators but also the end users. They have the view that eventually both servers and clients should be upgraded to enable a fully multilingual Internet. The servers should be first as that is where the technical expertise are, while the client end would slowly migrate as new applications are introduced. Meanwhile existing applications should also be able to access multilingual names.

Register.com The real problem is that there is no ideal solution. All proposed solutions to date have drawbacks, and it has been difficult to develop consensus about which of these drawbacks is the most tolerable. The underlying problem is indeed an extremely difficult one, and even if a "best" solution has emerged, it will take time and careful study in order to recognize and adopt it. Also, because of the critical nature of the DNS to the Internet community, it is important to develop and in-depth understanding of the pros and cons of all possible solutions, and to move towards adoption in a manner that does not jeopardize the stability of the Internet.
JPNIC IETF IDN WG has come to consensus as answered to Q1, so the WG is concluding proposed technologies, and going to process the result on standard track. The most anxious hurdle of the process is WALID's patent issue.
TWNIC Both of them.
Brunner-Williams The problem is sufficiently difficult that a "best" solution has not yet been accepted.
Anonymous B Since the problem itself is sufficiently difficult, the solution that can be generally adopted by the international societies has not yet emerged.
Malenfant yes, both
i-DNS.net

See 5 above, we believe it is inappropriate to see the IDN world as only having "one standard". IETF have already defined a standards framework; Client side, ACE based.

They are finessing this, e.g. we have recently seen options for DUDE over RACE debated, and we fully expect this polishing process will continue long into the future. One expects "standards" to be set, and then to improve, e.g. medical, emissions, noise etc, Internet will not be any different in our opinion.

Moving forwards, continual improvement does not mean that sufficiently robust technologies cannot be provided over the Internet. Clearly they have to conform to the standards of the day, and need to be interoperable.

From a customer standpoint, suppliers need to keep up to date and, most importantly, make THEIR customers aware of what it is that is being purchased, and any issues that may impact the use of that product/service. Again, we see that the Internet should not be any different to the normal market place.

IDN Standards have sufficiently crystallized to the point where solutions can be safely deployed over the Internet, to address the significant market pressure tat has built up in non-English speaking countries.Status Report: As above

7. Do the existing "testbeds" and pre-registrations help or hinder the resolution of the technical issues relating to IDN? In what manner? Would the testing impact the ongoing operation of the Internet?

WALID Testbeds are an important mechanism for gathering useful operational experience in this area, and help to gauge demand and user expectations for IDNs. Some of the testbed projects underway have been very careful to not disturb the use of the existing DNS, while others have not been as focused on the operational stability requirements of the network.
Verisign

A testbed that supports the IDN standard development process, such as VeriSign's testbed, is helpful. For example, the VeriSign GRS IDN testbed has offered technical feedback to the IDN Working Group on the complexity of the Row Based ASCII Compatible Encoding (RACE) algorithm (one possible ACE). Partially based on this feedback, the IDN Working Group has decided that RACE is not suitable for use in the eventual IDN standard.

In addition, the VeriSign testbed has been conducted in a progressive, phased approach. This allows for the completion of predefined milestones before moving to subsequent phases and thereby reduces the possibility of creating DNS stability problems.

It is difficult to imagine how a testbed could interfere with the operation of the Internet. It is highly unlikely that even a testbed that uses domain names in a binary format (unlike VeriSign's testbed) would negatively impact the Internet's DNS infrastructure (including the root and gTLD name servers). Because so many applications already send DNS queries in one binary format or another, the root and gTLD name servers are already deluged with such queries as part of the normal DNS resolution process, all with no impact aside from the additional volume.

Neteka

Depending on how the domain resolution strategy is eventually deployed, pre-registrations should not hurt the introduction of multilingual names. Other so called functional "testbeds" may hinder the progress, especially the establishment of alternative namespace beyond that recognized by ICANN. This is a very serious issue as these "testbeds" would redirect all multilingual requests to their own alternative namespace meaning that even if later on the existing namespace introduces multilingual names, the requests under the "testbed" system will be routed to the alternative namespace causing confusion. Pre-registration however is safer as it essentially means that the multilingual name is only stored in a database and not being used. Any technical solution could be deployed later for domain resolution. It also serves to be an indicator of user demand. Even when users know that these names do not work, a lot of people are registering for them in the hope that they will be able to use them soon.

Beyond the "testbeds" and pre-registrations in fact Neteka views the faulty implementations on the existing browsers and unnecessary blockages at proxies, cache servers and firewalls as even larger hindrance to the implementation of multilingual domain names. Please refer to section A:16 for more information.

Register.com

The operational experience gained from legitimate testbeds can be extremely helpful in moving solutions from theory into practice. Due to the large number of commercial interest in play, however, some of these testbeds might be seen as attempts to force the Internet community to accept certain technologies despite their appropriateness or quality. Generally, policy considerations have lagged behind technology in the IDN space, and as a result there have sometimes been inadequate assurances that testbeds serve the internet community by providing valuable operational experience as opposed to benefiting certain commercial interests at the expense of technology.

Generally, testbeds should not affect the ongoing operation of the Internet. It is important that end user's expectations of these testbeds be managed carefully however-these users may be under the impression that the testbeds may be an operational portion of the Internet, and may view technical failures within the testbeds as operational problems rather than a normal part of the testing process.

JPNIC They provides a lot of 'real samples' to evaluate proposed technologies such as ACEs, that are useful to list up issues. The impact on the operation is that DNS or Web server operators must learn how to convert IDN to ACE. Testing provides good opportunity to learn it. Testing also provides many information about IDN to end-users, engineers, developers, and service providers.
TWNIC Commercial promotion on a test bed product is not good. It is better to provide service until the standard of IDN is ready. But if the local testbed does not influence the Internet stability, it would be help for IDN development.
Brunner-Williams

Existing marketing of proprietary products hinder the resolution of technical issues relating to IDN. The "sale" of over one million RACE names removed an estimated USD$35,000,000 from the pool of capital available for funding work on IDN enablement, and created unrealistic expectations in speculators, trade mark owners, ICANN, MINC, and even the IETF, that a solution was both "easy" and "soon". This is "mindshare capture".

The testing question in the context of "testbeds" and pre-registrations is a non sequitur. There is no program for complex system testing of IDNs in the DNS or in the internet infrastructure, there is only string warehousing, and worse.

The only technically defensible testbed is the .CN operational support of UTF8 encoded Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters.

Anonymous B It benefits for testing the feasibilities of various technical resolutions. It can also promote the development of IDN to some extent.
i-DNS.net

The use of the word "test bed" has some very negative connotations when used by some industry players. Clearly there is some political debate here over the definition of a test bed -- is it a pure controlled lab experiment run by scientists, or is it an applied market focused approach run by marketers? In our opinion this is a philosophical and perhaps political issue, and it may be holding back deployment of ML solutions, without adding any value to the ML debate.

The Testbed process is helping prove that the technology can work; it flushes out areas where additional development is required for other ancillary services (e.g. ML hosting); pre-registrations also give a gauge to the level of market interest.

Market demand will not wait for a technically perfect solution (we expect to see a sufficiently robust and workable solution deployed, not one "final perfect" solution). The test bed, with its explicit disclaimers on non-performance (very important to advise Customers on what they are buying and any related issues), offers a good sandbox environment in which to test the technology's ability to administer and handle the diverse requirements. The feedback and analysis of testing here is invaluable to technical resolution efforts.

Status Report: As above

8. Are natural languages so complex, rich and varied that a true IDN system that responds completely to user expectations is beyond current technological capability? Can the problem be solved incrementally in a manner that does not interfere with the operation of the entire domain name system?

WALID The IDN problem in our view is not one of natural language, but rather one of adding support for a wider range of scripts to be used as identifiers in the DNS. As such, issues involving natural language and the often context-sensitive expectations of users are outside of the scope of the IDN-related efforts currently underway. Some within the community have proposed creating directory service layers above the DNS to meet the expanding needs, and we strongly encourage and support any work in this direction. Natural language issues are language- and locale-specific, and any proposals to address them should be developed based on participation by native members of the locale as well as general linguistics expertise.
Verisign

The IDN Working Group is already developing a technical solution to support a true IDN system.

As noted above, we support the introduction of IDNs in a phased manner that does not risk interference with the operation of the DNS.

Neteka

This depends on the perspective of what constitutes a "domain name". Some technical persons maintain that a domain name is nothing more than a string of characters for the identification of a resource over the Internet. Neteka however believes that domain names have evolved from its origins to represent an identity of a person or a corporation on the Internet, whether it is being used as part of an email address or simply a web address. Natural language rules can definitely be introduced to the DNS, Neteka's technology have shown that the use of phrases, punctuations and even spaces are possible. Therefore a fully natural language domain name is possible.

However, it is important to also understand that the domain name system is useful because of unique names and this rule should not be violated or confusion would occur. The same phrase must result in the same resource regardless of which locale or platform it is accessed from. This means that certain user education is required to understand that Mikeshoes.tld may not be the same Mikeshoes in your local mall.

Register.com The domain name system was never intended to serve as a directory service with the capability to consistently find the appropriate result to a natural language query. Although the original design of the DNS includes certain characteristics which are designed to reduce language-related errors (for example, case folding, or even the original limitation of domain names to use only ASCII characters), it still is not capable of distinguishing between variants of words (e.g. "color" versus "colour") or appreciating the other subtle nuances of language. Regardless of the IDN solution that eventually emerges, it will be important to educate users regarding the use of the Internet. A good IDN solution will not solve natural language problems, but will allow many more users to take advantage of the Internet using their native language and their native character sets.
JPNIC We believe that IDN doesn't introduce 'languages' to DNS, but introduces non-alphanumerical scripts or characters.
TWNIC Usually natural languages will not be a domain name, user may use natural languages on search engine to find out some data. But proper normalization of DNS is required even it is very difficult.
Brunner-Williams The DNS uses identifiers, not languages or words, though lots of words in lots of languages are used (in ASCII transliteration) in the DNS as identifiers. DNS labels are not general purpose objects for unconstrained writings, and the question reflects the (unfortunately widespread) misunderstanding concerning the fundamental properties of "identifier and lookup", wishfully substituting "word and search" in their place.
Anonymous B We can find a progressive way to solve the problem.
Malenfant yes, DNS is "identifier" only. Natural language queries could use web (http/url) or LDAP search to return identifier, for subsequent lookup in DNS system
i-DNS.net

Natural languages are complex. However, a workable and acceptable solution (i.e. one where non-English speakers can use their own language for domain names) does not need to perfectly cater for every singly nuance in a language.

Compromises can be found (such as the substitution of space by the hyphen in ASCII domain names). In our opinion, most languages could be implemented in a way that provides very high utility over ENGLISH by dealing with 95% of the language issues - the remaining 5% would be out of bound and not catered for.

Once more, a clear expression to the consumer is required so that they understand what they purchase.

i-DNS.net believes it has developed a solution, which adequately satisfies market expectations of a true IDN system. And yes, it can progress incrementally without disrupting existing DNS operations.

Status Report: Dichotomy between identifier and identity

9. How do different technologies affect the size limitation of domain names? What, if any, are the possible solutions?

WALID

Domain name segments are limited to 63 octets per segment, and an overall domain name length of 255 octets. In the context of the ACE-based proposals, Unicode codepoints can expand to multiple octets, thus reducing the number of actual non-Latin characters that can be used in a domain name. Even in non-ACE proposals (particularly those that rely on UTF-8) this same issue exists.

There are a number of proposals under consideration by the IETF IDN working group to address this issue through efficient encoding of Unicode sequences. The challenge in this area is to find an encoding algorithm that is both very efficient yet relatively simple to describe and implement. The current draft before the IETF IDN Working Group ACE design team comes very close to meeting these requirements.

Verisign Domain names are limited to 255 octets in length and individual labels (i.e., between periods) are limited to 63 octets. This is a fundamental limitation of the DNS protocol and cannot be changed without altering the DNS protocol. Different representations of different character sets require more or fewer octets depending on their design. For example, UTF-8 is a variable length encoding of the Unicode character set. In a given number of octets, some scripts require more space than others. The IDN Working Group has been sensitive to this issue during the design of the various ACE algorithms that are candidates for inclusion in the final IDN standard. A requirement of the final ACE algorithm is a roughly equal treatment of all scripts in Unicode.
Neteka

Brute Force Approach - utilizes existing packet format therefore will only allow a maximum of 63 bytes. Depending on the byte length of the character encoding scheme used, the number of characters possible could range from 63 to 15.

Protocol Extension Approach - new size limit could be introduced so length can become a non-issue.

ASCII Conversion Approach - utilizes existing packet format. Depending on compression scheme, domain length per label ranges between 15 - 20 characters.

Register.com Because they transform eight bit characters into what is approximately a five bit (37 possible values) storage format, ACE-based solutions generally reduce the number of native characters that may be present within a single DNS label. Most of the existing ACE proposals contain compression mechanisms in order to increase the size of the native domain name as much as possible.
JPNIC As answered in Q2, ACE reduces the size of each label. Therefore ACE must involve effective compression algorithm. JPNIC is evaluating many ACEs and contributing to IDN WG ACE team.
TWNIC There is more length limitation on ACE encoding. Native encoding (local encoding like big5) has less length limitation on domain names.
Brunner-Williams See the response to Question 2.
Anonymous B

Both multi 8-bit encoding and ACE can affect the size limitation of domain names.

One of the resolutions is to expand DNS protocol.

Malenfant encoded labels longer than 63 chars could be resolved through using more levels, one per word or syllable for instance. 255 chars overall should be adequate
i-DNS.net

The ASCII DNS already imposes size limitations, probably as its original designers ever imagined that it would be used today to identify name of companies etc. The IETF strategy Localè Unicode à ACE often requires more that one ASCII byte to represent each character so this means a ML DNS does not allow such long strings.

Compounding this, some countries do not use acronyms to the extent that we do in the English speaking world (e.g. Arabic), preferring to register the full company name.

IETF's proposals do deal with the size issue, and it is important to note that DUDE has some advantage over RACE in this regard. However, it is also important to note that regardless of technology restrictions, customers need to understand what is and is not achievable in a ML DNS. The fact that a ML DNS implementation does not cater for the full 64 character DNS string will not invalidate its utility. Perfection is a laudable design goal, but in reality most countries just want to use their language now, and 80% is better than 0%.

Status Report: Existing Latin-based DNS limitations

10. Do IDNs pose special problems for the technical operation of WHOIS databases? If so, what problems? What are the possible solutions?

WALID Access to the WHOIS public registration databases tends to be provided in two ways: via web-based interfaces, and through the TCP port 43 whois/nicname service. One of the challenges for operating a WHOIS database will be in ensuring that queries arrive in a form that can be accurately matched against the database contents. WALID considers that a positive solution would be to use the IDNA approach and upgrade the deployed 'WHOIS' clients. These upgraded applications would need to normalize and transcode IDNs into their ACE equivalents, and then use the transformed name as the query to the WHOIS server. This is a strength of the IDNA approach, in that it addresses not only the question of IDNs in the DNS, but also in all of the applications, such as WHOIS, which use domain names as application protocol elements.
Verisign

No, although WHOIS services must be internationalized if the domain names they hold are internationalized. One possibility is internationalizing the WHOIS protocol itself, along with clients and servers. Another is adopting the IDNA approach: IDNs would be stored in an ACE format and WHOIS clients would be required to convert internationalized user input into ACE format before querying a WHOIS server.

VeriSign GRS is presently developing an IDN Whois service. In the interim, an IDN conversion tool is provided.

Neteka Multilingual domain names should not present special problems not encountered by the domain name server. Depending on the approach used, WHOIS databases may need to be upgraded however for it to handle multilingual requests. For example, if a protocol extension approach is used, the WHOIS side should determine whether the mode bit is required or should it force all request into a standardized format.
Register.com Generally, IDN problems should not significantly affect the operation of the WHOIS database. It may be necessary to display WHOIS data in non-Latin scripts, but this problem can largely be viewed independently of the IDN effort.
JPNIC The problems of WHOIS are expressions in query and display. Short term solution is to update IDN-aware whois client. Long term solution is to improve WHOIS protocol.
TWNIC Some WHOIS database can not accept clean 8 bit data or query. The problem could be solved if IETF finalize the standard for WHOIS databases support IDN a soon as possible.
Brunner-Williams No
Malenfant no problem, either raw ACE encoding, or UTF-8 for descriptive references
i-DNS.net

WHOIS is a very old product, probably as much used as it is maligned. Its roots go back to the days of ASCCI, and a world without browsers and Registries based on database engines. The Internet community is separately debating what it wants its WHOIS to be.

However, WHOIS has become synonymous with data base searching for a Domain Name, and so the Ml solution has to address this.

With ML, there is no longer one standard encoding, so the WHOIS product needs to understand, detect and handle multilingual queries. From a customer standpoint, it is important to stress that this does not only mean catering for an ML domain name, but local language CONTACT DETAILS too.

The i-DNS.net's implementation of the WHOIS database is already IDN-aware.

Status Report: Whois must be internationalized on server side or IDNA'ed client-side. Long term server side solution preferred.

11. Are any IDNs related technologies covered by patents or other intellectual property rights? If so, will this have an affect on the implementation of IDNs?

WALID

We understand that there are a number of granted patents and patent applications that cover various areas relating to internationalized domain names, including U.S. Patent No. 6,182,148, which was issued to WALID, Inc. on January 30, 2001, a related PCT application by WALID, and at least one pending patent application by i-DNS.Net. We consider that intellectual property rights need not impede implementation of IDNs, and may even encourage a more rapid adoption of a single and optimal technical standard.

Regarding WALID's patent and PCT application, we have supplied the following IPR Statement to the IETF on November 3rd, 2000. We understand that this statement is in accordance with many such statements that have been filed with the IETF by numerous companies in the past:

Pursuant to the requirements of RFC 2026, Section 10 ("INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS"), WALID, Inc. ("WALID") gives notification to the IETF Secretariat that one or more patent applications relating to a METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR INTERNATIONALIZING DOMAIN NAMES have been filed. Should the implementation and practice of any part of an IETF standard relating to the above subject matter require the use of technology disclosed in any granted WALID patent, WALID is prepared to make available, upon written request, a non-exclusive license under reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions, based on the principle of reciprocity, consistent with established practice.

For any questions regarding WALID intellectual property and license, please contact:

J. Douglas Hawkins
WALID, Inc.
State Technology Park
2245 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Verisign Several companies have patents surrounding the IDN space. WALID, Inc. has notified the IETF of a patent that may cover the work of the IDN Working Group. The working group is currently taking this patent into account as it decides whether or not to proceed with the IDNA solution.
Neteka

Neteka understands that there are at least the follwing three patented approaches:

Neteka - Parts of Neteka's multilingual technologies are patent pending and are submitted as Internet drafts to the IETF and archived both at the IETF site as well as at http://www.DNSII.org. Neteka's technology however is available as open source and is freely available at http://www.OpenIDN.org. This ensures that even if Neteka's technology is used, the Internet community is guaranteed to have a freely available source of the technology for their utilization.

Walid - In essence, Walid's technology is a client-side or pre-DNS-server ASCII conversion approach. Neteka's understanding is that the patent surrounds a technology that intercepts multilingual requests sent from the client and performs a conversion of the multilingual characters into an alphanumeric form acceptable by the existing DNS and reformulating the request to carry this alphanumeric string before sending to existing DNS servers for domain resolution. Servers therefore do not need to be upgraded as requests remain in ASCII format.

iDNS - As far as Neteka's knowledge, iDNS utilizes a proxy solution that performs similar interception of multilingual domain names as prescribed by Walid. However, the conversion and detection is done in a proxy server beside the domain name system. All requests must first go through this proxy before going thorough a DNS resolution process.

Register.com Several companies claim intellectual property rights over various portions of the IDN solution space. These claims could affect the implementation of IDN if groups such as the IETF make decisions regarding whether or not to use a technology based on its IPR encumbrances, or if the holder of intellectual property rights regarding a particular solution seeks to prevent others from using the technology.
JPNIC JPNIC doesn't have any patent to IDN related technologies.
TWNIC ACE covered by Walid's patent is a obvious example. It will has an affect on the implementation of IDNs, but TWNIC do not use ACE solution at current stage.
Brunner-Williams Yes. Walid and Ydsig both have patent claims which may apply to some ACE in particular, and possibly to any ACE. The IETF has an IPR policy, and if the rights to an encumbered technology cannot be reconciled with that policy, it is IETF practice to discard the encumbered technology.
Anonymous B ACE technology is covered by intellectual property rights.
i-DNS.net

Yes -We understand that Walid has a patent and this is under discussion inside the IETF.

Status Report: WALID patent granted, Neteka (patents pending). Proponents suggest tech under Open Source License.

12. Are you participating (or have you participated in) the IETF standards process for IDN?

WALID WALID has been an active participant in the IETF IDN Working Group, and has submitted Internet-Drafts supporting the Working Group's efforts. However, in conformity with RFC 2026 Section 10, WALID has not proposed any of its proprietary technology to the IETF for inclusion in a standard, and WALID participants in the IETF were vigilant to avoid making any contribution related to our patent application to the IDN Working Group before filing our IPR Statement on November 3, 2000.
Verisign Verisign GRS is an active participant in the IETF standards process, including the IDN working group.
Neteka Yes, Neteka is actively participating at the IETF IDN work group and have submitted three Internet drafts as proposed solutions for multilingual domain names. These are also archived at the DNSII site.
Register.com We are participants within the IETF standards process for IDN.
JPNIC Yes, we are. We are participating in IETF IDN WG from the very beginning of it.
TWNIC Yes, we attend IETF IDN WG meeting several times and there is a IETF IDN WG status update on JET meeting every time.
Brunner-Williams


Yes
Malenfant No
i-DNS.net

Yes. James Seng (our CTO) is the CO-Chair of the IDN working group. Our commitment to this group is a reflection of the I-DNS.net commitment to the standards process.

Status Report: Many respondents are involved in the IETF IDN WG.

13. Once IETF adopts an IDN standard, how quickly will it be incorporated into applications such as browsers? Are any problems with this incorporation anticipated? What can the IETF and ICANN do to facilitate the incorporation process?

WALID

Should an ACE-based approach to IDNs be chosen by the IETF and accepted by the Internet community, we would expect that major application suites could be upgraded within a few months of the adoption of the standard. In order to ensure rapid adoption, ICANN could move swiftly to endorse and support the standard with a policy focused on encouraging consensus and interoperability in this area. In the short-term, end-users are going to demand enabling software to resolve IDNs immediately. ICANN can reduce the potential for fragmentation during the period before the final standard is issued by encouraging the distribution and adoption of these enabling technologies.

If a non-ACE-based solution were to be chosen, we would expect to see a much slower deployment and adoption cycle. Many experts within the IETF believe that an infrastructure-based solution could take as long as eight to ten years to fully deploy, and we would expect to see a significant amount of fragmentation and non-interoperability in the area of IDNs as a result.

Verisign Only application developers can answer the first two parts of this question. The IETF can facilitate the process by developing an IDN standard in a timely manner. ICANN can facilitate the process by supporting the IETF's efforts and the eventual standard.
Neteka

The speed of adoption will be dependent on the solution chosen and intellectual property rights (IPR) issues surrounding it. Existing browsers have already implemented some measures for multilingual domain names albeit often faulty and problematic, it is therefore likely that a patent protected approach might not be embraced by the browser community.

Furthermore, Neteka believes that regardless of the standard adopted, there needs to be a transition period and registries will have to embrace a solution for them to be able to immediately deploy multilingual domains that can be used by most of the people on the Internet. This would very likely mean a hybrid solution more or less like that described in section A:1.

Register.com The speed at which IDN is adopted into applications may depend on the particular IDN solution that is adopted by the IETF. Some approaches are easier than others to implement at the application layer, and as a result would likely see faster uptake by application developers.
JPNIC Deployment of IDN-aware applications heavily depends on two things: IDN toolkit and definition of IDN in application protocol. When toolkit is prepared, applications such as telnet of ftp that treat hostname will be easily developed. But applications such as browser or mailer that treat domain name in application protocol won't. IETF or other organization such as W3C should define how IDN is treated in application protocol. ICANN should elaborate criteria whether each accredited registry properly adopts IDN technology. Also ICANN should support fundamental software budget such as BIND.
TWNIC (1)It's perhaps within one or two years.
(2)Once if IETF finalize IDN standard, as soon as possible, the vender will adopt it.
Brunner-Williams
This question assumes that only some ACE variant will be adopted as the IDN standard. See "mindshare capture", in the response to Question 7, above.
Anonymous B It depends on how do application suppliers support such IDN standard.There are some problems that can not be anticipated.IETF and ICANN should do their best to listen to various suggestions from the whole Internet community, in order to reach the most favorable IDN resolution.
Malenfant very, very slow incorporation, therefore need to support extended co-existence period 4-10 years
i-DNS.net

We believe that adoption will be relatively fast , notwithstanding that we do not envisage "one standard". However, we perceive that as more applications become "IDN aware", there is greater potential for the "standards" to become less compliant. For instance, both Microsoft and Netscape provide browser solutions, but there are "nuances" that exist between them causing them to perform slightly differently under similar circumstances.

"IDN aware" applications may also lead to interoperability issues with the currently deployed client-side plug-ins distributed by in-country players. IETF and ICANN can ease its adoption via the promotion of a Universal Client - a cousin to its server-side equivalent known as iBIND

Status Report: Depends on speed of adoption.

14. Will the IETF standard be interoperable with other IDN standards? What can be done to eliminate interoperability problems (assuming not all ccTLDs adopt the IETF standard)?

WALID Given the diverse range of approaches currently deployed to support IDNs, it is impossible for the IETF to issue a standard that provides for complete interoperability with all existing deployments, nor is such an expectation reasonable. Adoption of any technical standard is of course voluntary, and we would expect user and market demands to promote standardization and uniformity in this area. To ensure interoperability during the transition period, WALID is adding support to our WorldConnect system enabler to enable end-users to continue to resolve IDNs that may have been registered using different standards. With a client-based approach such as WALID's, it is possible to support de-facto or national standards in addition to the final standard the IETF recommends.
Verisign There are no IDN standards at this time with which an eventual IETF standard could interoperate. There are various IDN experiments, none of which can be expected to interoperate with an IDN standard. We believe compliance with an IETF IDN standard should be a requirement for all ccTLD and gTLD operators now offering IDNs.
Neteka Regardless of the solution embraced by the IETF, Neteka's hybrid solution should be able to make sure that interoperability would not be a concern. It is already interoperable with some of the ccTLDs' solution as well as the IDNA solution currently contemplated by the IETF. Should a protocol extension approach be adopted, Neteka's solution is also prepared for it and could consolidate different approaches. In short, there is not too much interoperability concerns so long as alternative namespaces and unnecessary name checks are not created to complicate this problem.
Register.com Due to the wide variety of IDN approaches, it is likely that the IETF standard will not be interoperable with various other IDN approaches. For this reason, it is extremely important that all interested parties be active participants within the IETF process and that registries and registrars do not make irrevocable technology decisions prior to the adoption of a formal standard.
JPNIC There is no IDN standard yet. The IETF will standardize only one, so interoperability to be concerned locates between IDN and current DN.
TWNIC I think all the ccTLDs will follow the IETF standard. It is better dialogue with IDN users when IETF IDN WG defines the standard. Encouraging IDN users participate and involve IETF IDN WG would help for push forming IDN standards.
Brunner-Williams

Both ACE and UTF8 rely upon an underlying untransformed UCS. Names "in UCS" and equivalently "nameprepped" and transported encoded into ASCII or encoded into UTF8 may resolve to the same internet address.

Equivalent underlying character repetoires, equivalent name preparation, equivalence classing (or other means, e.g, secondary A records, C names) and "transport independent resolution" all will contribute to the elimination of interoperability problems, assuming both UTF8 and a single ACE are the de facto or de jure standards for IDNs.

If multiple ACEs are deployed, then the problem is equivalent to the known hard problem of code set negociation, and practically intractable.

Anonymous B

To make IETF standard more compatible.

IETF should consult extensively for suggestions before finalize its standard.

Malenfant store ACE encoded chars directly in "non-supporting" domains
i-DNS.net At this moment, we believe so, and the approach adopted to date in setting and IDN framework via IETF is a sound approach to address interoperability issues.However, we sense that the time taken by IETF is far too long for the market, and the pressure is mounting to deploy. In our opinion, this may lead to other technologies driving ahead to set a de facto standard outside of the IETF.Status Report: Unlikely that IETF will be interoperable with all IETF deployments. Underlying principle is that compliance with IETF standards is a must, and speed is essential if IETF wish to maintain any form of "control" on the process going forwards.

15. Are there other end user needs concerning IDN that need to be addressed?

WALID One question that has not been discussed sufficiently concerning IDNs is the use of IDNs in document contexts, such as URLs embedded in HTML or XML documents. End users are going to expect to be able to generate URLs containing domain names in native characters, so the IDNA approach (in its current form) needs to address these issues before it can be considered complete.
Verisign This survey appears to address key user needs.
Neteka

Neteka believes that it is very important for multilingual domain names to be immediately usable by most client systems on the Internet today without requiring client side modifications or plug-ins. This is a very strong demand from all of Neteka's clients and represents the major concern for multilingual domain name registrants and users. The average user is usually not technically sophisticated enough to understand the complicities of multilingual domain names and will be frustrated and confused if multilingual names do not work as expected and the same as English names.

Beyond providing multilingual characters, symbols and punctuations are also very important as a component of language. The introduction of multilingual characters open up the opportunity to introduce some symbols as well and they should not be excluded.

JPNIC Left hand side of E-mail addresses, path part of URL, electronic signature, and so on. RFC2825 addresses it clearly. Domain name is a fundamental component of communication on the Internet. The requirement of the end-user is not only resolving IDN as hostname, but also indicating certain entity on the Internet.
TWNIC Backward compatibility and general Internet application adoption.
Brunner-Williams

Yes. Direct access to DNS labels in applications is the pre-IDN norm. In the interposed-keyword, interposed-proxy, interposed-root, and ACE transformed solution frameworks, the end-user looses direct, unmediated access to DNS labels. This is incompatible with open architectures.

The following list of applications MUST use IDNs:

  • ftp
  • ssh
  • telnet
  • smtp
  • whois
  • tftp
  • finger
  • http
  • kerbers
  • pop
  • uucp
  • nntp
  • ntp
  • snmp
  • bgp
  • irc
  • nfs
  • afs
i-DNS.net

Linguistic sensitivity is a concern, and domain names need to handle linguistic issues such as traditional/simplified Chinese, different uses of diacritics etc. Some languages also share the same script, such as Chinese and Japanese, Arabic and Urdu. IDN solutions need to incorporate "linguistic policy" at the NAME PREP level. The rules need to be clearly conveyed to the domain name holding publics in each language.

However, the biggest concern that we see arises from FUD. There appears to be a current climate of "fear' for IDN's, partly promoted trough IETF, partly through ICANN. We believe that IDN is doable, and would welcome positive, clarifying statements from key leader groups such as ICANN. We welcome informed debate and believe that ICANN has a position to ensure that balance is put to such as debate.

Customers are frustrated at the time it is taking to make IDN available, and becoming confused as a result of conflicting technical aspects that are currently being debated.

Status Report: Use of IDNs in documents, HTML/XML, punctuation. Other issues include lack of end-user sophistication and inability/reluctance to handle plug in installations

16. Are there any other technical issues we should know about?

Verisign This survey appears to cover the major technical issues.
Neteka

No matter how multilingual names are deployed, a set of problematic glitches would arise as the transition takes place and as users learn to understand more about these issues. The main reason being that the average user will not immediately understand why they might not be able to access multilingual domain names using their existing system. These could range from the client side software settings to the ISP settings or even the authoritative end hosting handling. A more technically comprehensive documentation on these known issues could be found at http://www.OpenIDN.org.

Browser & DNS Client Application Issues - some browsers simply block all entry of domain names, others try to implement some form of transformation of the name causing loss of character information, which is sometimes irrecoverable. There are four main types of behaviors among the browsers and client side applications when encountering a multilingual domain name:

  • Send as is without interfering - while it is positive that the request is being sent without faulty alterations, because character encoding information is not provided, it is very difficult to determine precisely the intended domain name;
  • Attempt to convert to UTF-8 - most implementations to date are problematic due to complex application (browser) and operating system kernel intricacies. In some occasions, the double conversion occurs (UTF-8 on UTF-8 bytes), others drop ending bytes, still others perform unnecessary case folding causing character information loss that may be irrecoverable;
  • Attempt to convert to some form of ASCII string - similar to the UTF-8 issues, these implementations sometimes creates inconsistent results. Notably is the different behavior of the application whether it goes through a proxy or not;
  • Refuses to send request

DNS Resolver Issues - in general, the DNS resolver resides at the ISP level. There are three areas of trouble for multilingual domain names at this level: 1) the ability to match multilingual requests with cached records; 2) the ability to refer the request accurately to its nearest match (TLD/root) server; and 3) the ability to cache the results of multilingual requests. It is very important that these "messengers" in the DNS do not choke on multilingual requests. Because the original DNS protocol itself is 8-bit capable, this middlemen level usually simply passes requests along the DNS path, however proxy and caching issues could complicate matters (Section 4).

Authoritative DNS Databases - authoritative DNS databases include root servers, top-level domain (TLD) registry servers to individual domain hosts. While they are critical to the functioning of the Internet, especially for root servers and TLD servers, their tolerance to multilingual requests are higher because they seldom perform caching and will implement multilingual names only when they have prepared for it. Multilingual requests to root servers will either be authoritatively dropped because the particular TLD does not exist or will be referred to existing ASCII TLDs.

Beyond the direct implications of multilingual domain names on the registration system and the domain resolution system, a handful of other peripheral issues arise as multilingual names are being introduced to the Internet:

Proxy Servers & Cache Servers - first and foremost, proxy servers and cache servers will be affected because they depend on URLs and domain names to function properly. They also contribute to the blocking of multilingual names and thus present a huge barrier for multilingual names to be transparently deployed. A multilingual aware, patched version of Squid is currently available from Neteka.

Web Servers & Digital Signatures - web servers are the next in line that requires some work in order to be able to perform accurate virtual hosting functionalities as this as well depend on domain names. Digital signatures and certificates are also an area of concern as they also uses domain names as a key identifier. As DNS security is being deployed, this becomes even more important. A multilingual aware web server based on Apache is also available from Neteka.

Other Applications & Databases - besides the immediate critical transportation nodes, other applications such as databases that hold domain names and email addresses will have to be taken into considerations. These include customer databases, mailing lists and other directory, search as well as storage applications. Neteka's API solution for a quick fix for these applications is the NeMate library which utilizes an ASCII transformation engine to force multilingual names into unique ASCII identifiers without loosing character information.

JPNIC IANA should define ACE prefix (ACE identifier) as soon as possible. JPNIC proposed a determination process in draft-ietf-idn-aceid-01.txt.
TWNIC

1. Consider modify BIND and Internet application to support clean 8 bits (native encoding) and UTF-8 encoding environment, in order to accept IDN.

2. The technology of converse between Traditional and Simplify Chinese encoding.

Klensin

The majority of the issues raised here are either protocol-design (or interpretation) or market behavior and analysis ones. They are important issues. But, they, especially the protocol ones, are not going to be settled properly by counting heads or otherwise determining a majority opinion from the community.

More generally, I believe that this issue is, with the exception of one area that has, IMO, been persistently dodged, out of ICANN's scope:

  • Design, evaluation, and approval of protocols falls into different space. Nothing gives ICANN any authority or responsibility in this area until the point at which parameter assignment is involved, and ICANN has little discretion about most parameter assignment issues.
  • The IETF process in this area will take as long as it takes to get things right. There is enough pressure on the area that I do not believe it is likely to take one week longer than that. But pressure from various interests, including ICANN, are unlikely to produce quicker results of high quality and may impede the final schedule. For example, I had intended to spend this morning wrapping up the next draft of a set of documents that lay the foundation for a "search environment" system clearly enough that we might start thinking about working groups and area allocations. Instead, I'm attempting to respond to your "survey" note.
  • As most of you know, there has been a gradual shift in the technical community --driven by increased understanding of user needs, requirements, and expectations-- away from the belief that a DNS-only solution will be adequate. The revised opinion is that additional mechanisms, which support "search"-type operations rather than only the DNS's exact-match lookups, will surely be needed and that "the IDN problem" will not be solved or protocol work completed until they are. I make no prediction as to whether IETF will agree on a partial/ temporary/ interim in-DNS approach while those other scenarios work themselves out.
  • Any common/standardized approach, whether layered on the DNS or part of it, that moves outside the traditional DNS, hostname, and Class=IN rules, is going to raise important strategic issues for ICANN and the community. There are no approaches of this type that I consider plausible (e.g., not fragmenting of the Internet) that do not have at least some aspects of a "unique root" situation or other way to ensure uniqueness of names. But any of them --whether a new class, a directory-like structure, or something else-- imply, technically, the opportunity to go back and revisit the governance and authority questions and to do so without any significant claims of US Government ownership, authority, or oversight responsibility. I would personallyprefer to see ICANN take on the necessary roles, if only because I don't want to revisit the battles and traumas of the last four or five years. But I thnk your ability to gain acceptance in that role will be significant enhanced if you demonstrate to the community that you are able to resist efforts to drive you toward expansion of your role beyond your natural charter. And IDN surveys and evaluation at this point are expansionist.
  • The one area where I believe you clearly do have scope -by virtue of inheritance of IANA's role under RFC 1591-- is to protect the Internet against abuses of the DNS that create the risk of damage to existing, conforming and deployed software, or of ambiguous or non-unique naming. The risks in those areas of ill-defined testbeds, "just send 8" strategies, encouragement of multilingual cybersquatting, etc., are considerable and have been identified repeatedly to ICANN. The solution is to start warning the relevant domains of the impact, with the potential of starting a redelegation process --clearly contemplated by 1591-- if they continue to encourage these efforts. If, as I suspect is the case, ICANN is effectively powerless to do this, then admit that and get out of this area until the various issues sort themselves out in the marketplace.
Probst

1. Naming

I wonder, why you call this "Internationalized Domains". Is a domain in an American Indian's script an "international domain", or rather a "multilingual domain" (MLD)?

2. Verisign's "Testbed"

Versign started its "testbed" with mixed appreciation of its usefulness. ISOC discouraged it, but Verisign went ahead, and by indicting that they would transfer testbed registrations later without additional charge to the live gTLD zones, they put registrars into a difficult situation: comply with ISOC's requests and wait with MLD registrations, or accept MLD registration in order not to loose customers.

Registrants on the other side, as much as they might have wanted to honour ISOC's request, had to register their rightful names in the testbed, in order to be sure, not to loose out, once MLDs are accepted in the live gTLDs, i.e. existing testbed registrations would be transfered to the live zones.

For everybody it has to look, like Verisign is dictating the conditions, not ICANN.

3. Verisign and NSI

Verisign had published a time table when they would accept registrations for which script. UNICODE was after a while scheduled for 5th of April. At that time, the Network Solution webpage for testbed registrations was way outdated. I think it said UNICODE registrations would be available by early March, i.e. the page was done early February and had not been updated until 5th of April. The page was in a language, which didn't suggest, that NSI was waiting for Verisign, but they themselves would be ready with their setup until the given times. Without further explanation, Verisign then delayed UNICODE for the 19th of April. On that date the page on NSI changed and they accepted registrations.

One cannot help but wonder, whether Verisign delayed the process, because NSI was not yet ready, and to start earlier had meant much lost revenue for NSI (other registrars were ready already).

I am aware, that this is a vague suspicion, but in case it would be true, who could proof it?

4. Register.com

Register.com was one of the few registrars, which accepted "pre-registrations" for UNICODE domains, even before the 5th of April, claiming, that they would try to register them, as soon as possible. On 19th - and even until the 23rd of April, none of the Register.com's pre-registered domains showed up in whois, and it was even possible to register them with NSI (again). Some days later, Register.com informed registrants, that their domains had been accepted and charged for it. However, until today, those domains show up in whois only as "registered by Register.com", but don't show the registrant (whereas the NSI registrations do). This leaves registrants neither a chance to check "first come, first serve" principles, nor to fight cybersquatting at an early stage.

5. Client Applications

As far as I know, none of the current client applets (to do the foreign script to *ACE conversion) supports UNICODE. Customers in "UNICODE countries" therefore cannot participate in Verisign's "Phase 3.2" (current) and "Phase 3.3" (which should start soon). A "testbed" where the testing cannot be done is rather useless.

6. Blocking of MLDs

I didn't find any policy stated, what would happen to domains, which are directly registered in their *ACE form, before "official" registrations (or the transfer of testbed domains into the live zones) will occur.

7. Ease of use of Whois.

To check whois info on MLDs (in the testbed) is right now a cumbersome multistep-procedure: transform the MLD version via an online tool into its RACE version, then copy and past this RACE version into a whois form on some other websites.

There need to be tools to make this easier for non-techies.

8. Open Source

I strongly suggest to adopt only technology where, and to "go live" when required tools (like those applets below) are available under an Open Source License, so that they can be easily adapted to local languages and to different computing platforms.

9. MLDs and "alternative TLDs".

During the introduction of the MLDs, every Internet user who wishes to access those MLD domains has to install a small applet to do the conversion to a DNS compatible *ACE string. This will make it very easy for companies like New.net to offer those applets with "double functionality": new MLDs and at the same time a new root (e.g. the New.net root). Looking at the latest published numbers from New.net, it seems to me, that ICANN is on the best way to loose the battle.

If it obviously cannot win on its own (anymore), then it might make the most sense to look for allies, and the group around the ORSC/Superroot seems to me the best option. By peering the ICANN root with their root, there would be immediately lots of new TLDs available for everybody on the Net (whithout the need for plug-ins), and New.net with their conflicting TLDs had to fight against lots of TLD holders. The ORSC looks like very reasonable, has obviously the most "historical legitimacy", and seems to be willing to co-operate with ICANN.

Brunner-Williams

Yes.

  • The existence of standard encodings other than ASCII.
  • The issues of encoding discovery and negotiation.
  • The difference between glyph-centric and character-centric approaches to scripts.
  • The prevalence of 7-bit processing in IETF standard protocols.
  • The prevalence of 8-bit clean processing in POSIX and proprietary operating systems.
  • The basic contours of the i18n/l10n applications and system markets, by market area and major vertical market segment.
  • The 8-bit clean "readiness" of bind9.
  • The UTF-8 "readiness" of sendmail.
Malenfant

The problem seems to me to be one of presentation, not infrastructure change. ACE encoding would seem to be transparent on servers and clients, except visually. Consequently, clients could use one of these options:

  1. rely on client browser to display/convert ACE encodings
  2. live with raw ACE encodings visible in client, and manually obtain them from web sites using, Java applets, Java/ECMAScripts, or CGI scripts, for instance, and use copy/paste
  3. point to DNS proxies that would convert IDN characters to ACE?

Note, URL links would be ACE encoded only, so non-ACE browsers would work correctly

i-DNS.net

Some languages do not have standardized encoding and ISO10646 is unable to satisfy their needs. This means these languages may not be able to be Multilingualised until such time as they get ISO encoded.

Some also do not have generic Input Method Engines that allow IDN to be used. This means that the IME will need development prior to deployment in an ML solution

Note, these should not be reasons to hold the rest of the world backThere is also a significant demand for Internationalized Email applications from our users.

Status Report: As above.

Milton Mueller Thanks to Mr. Katoh and the other members of the committee for a balanced and informative report. I have a few hurried comments.
First, it would be useful if the task force would compile a list of the major papers and reports that currently exist on IDNs, and provide links to their URLs if they are on the Internet.

Second, as a Communications PhD I would express my strong support for the viewpoint that domain names are just unique, hierarchically organized identifiers for computers or other resource on the Internet. Their primary function is technical. Policy should NOT be based on the assumption that domain names should be something more than that. It will prove dangerous and counterproductive to attempt to make them approximate "natural language" and all its inherent contextual ambiguity. Such a path will simply lead to complex, expensive and ultimately futile attempts to regulate and control the use of DNS labels on a worldwide basis.

Thus, ICANN policies that attempt to be sensitive to extremely local and culturally specific variations in scripts must be avoided. Whatever problems of this sort arise as a byproduct of technical change can be handled through regional treaties and national systems of law.

Finally, ICANN needs to clarify its relationship to the standardization process. There is pressure from some quarters to leverage ICANN's contractual relationship with registries to impose specific technical standards regarding IDNs on them. This is wrong and should not be done. I hope that from this process the Board will make an explicit statement that it does not have and should not have any authority to select from among competing technical standards and require registries or registrars to employ one of them exclusively.

ICANN was never intended to be a standard-setting or enforcing organization. It is purely an assignment authority within the framework of Internet standards.

17. During the public forum discussion of IDNs in Stockholm, several members of the public observed that adoption of an IDN standard was "the easy part" of the IDN process. What are the "hard parts" we have to look forward to? Why are they going to be so hard?

Brunner-Williams

Several difficult challenges lie before the DNS technical community, the IDN mess, which may transition through an application-specific (ACE) mechanism before binary (UTF8 or better) deployment in the DNS, changes to fundamental constants such as label length (currently 63 bytes), addition of DNSSEC and IPv6 addressing. Each requires a transition period of non-trivial duration and of non-trivial complexity.

In each case it is "easy" to specify the "right answer" (or even a reasonably good "wrong answer"), and much much harder to deploy the change in a global nameserving mesh of hosts, some of which are running bind4, some bind8, some bind9, some other implementations of the DNS protocol, across a space in which global consistency is formally required, or which has reasonable convergence properties.

Malenfant

1). The particularities of local languages:

The implementation architecture of IDNs includes two important elements: the definition of the client interface and DNS. The original intention for IDNs is to permit all people in the world to locate the Internet resources by using their local language. So the special requirements of local languages and characters should be resolved in the whole architecture. It is inevitable for vast users to have different requirements, and it is technically feasible to implement the whole architecture to meet the requirements. There may exist many solutions to meet the requirements, so which solution and where in the whole architeture to achieve the requirements is an issue of technique selection.

2). Alternative: UTF8/ACE

The consequence of the selection has a bearing on the future developmental trends of IDN. In a long term, it also affects the applications, services of the Internet.

i-DNS.net

Upon adoption of a technical Standard, the harder problems include deployment and migration issues like the following:

It may take an exceedingly long time to update all DNS applications around the world. The solution would still depend on client-side resolution plug ins that likewise need to be updated to be interoperable with each other.

As the standards improve over time, there is a major commitment to keep the IDN solutions (plug ins, WHOIS etc) up to date.

The standards will be just a base, and any "Policy' encoded may be enhanced within each country, much like each ccTLD has slightly different Policies

The "easy part" is taking so long, and we fear that providers may break away and implement "workable" de facto solutions unless IETF and ICANN move ahead within a reasonable period of time

Others would include linguistic sensitivity issues e.g. normalization/canonicalization, lack of official font, language, encoding, input method, renderer?

TWNIC (2) The IDN IETF standard isn't finalized yet. But the IDN requirements from Internet users are very urgent. By the way, even the standard is finalized in time, the related applications deployment will still take times more than several years. It need to modify many existing client and server software, such as browser, email ….. etc. This is the hard parts we think. The deployment of those kind of large scale services in infrastructure level is extremely difficult.

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