Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names

Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> Wed, 11 April 2012 19:20 UTC

From: Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>
To: Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im>
References: <4F84AAA5.3030104__43291.804000228$1334094511$gmane$org@stpeter.im> <87ehrusqf4.fsf@latte.josefsson.org> <4F85A5DF.9050701__25300.7611529485$1334160852$gmane$org@stpeter.im>
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Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:20:05 +0200
In-Reply-To: <4F85A5DF.9050701__25300.7611529485$1334160852$gmane$org@stpeter.im> (Peter Saint-Andre's message of "Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:40:15 -0600")
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Cc: "kitten@ietf.org" <kitten@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names
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Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im> writes:

> On 4/11/12 1:01 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>> Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@stpeter.im> writes:
>> 
>>> At the PRECIS WG session in Paris, we had quite a discussion
>>> about spaces in user names. Alexey maintained that this must have
>>> been included in SASLprep (RFC 4013) for a good reason, but the
>>> reason wasn't clear to folks in the meeting. So I have a few
>>> questions:
>>> 
>>> 1. Do SASL user names really need to include spaces?
>> 
>> I have seen real human names used for authentication identifiers
>> more than once, so I believe the answer is yes.
>> 
>> /Simon
>
> Thanks for the input. So my next question is:
>
>>> 3. If SASL user names *do* need to include spaces, would it be
>>> fine to define simple user names in SASL as a space-separated
>>> list of NameClass entities?
>>> 
>>> Option #3 seems preferable to (a) specifying that the PRECIS
>>> NameClass needs to include space (to which there was a lot of
>>> resistance during the PRECIS WG session), (b) enabling folks to
>>> superclass PRECIS string classes (to which there was also a lot
>>> of resistance), or (c) severely subclassing the PRECIS FreeClass
>>> to be something like NameClass+SP.
>
> Feedback is welcome. :)

I believe there is some serious terminology issue if there is resistance
to including space into a class of characters defined like this:

   NameClass:  a sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols that is used
      to identify or address a network entity such as a user account, a
      venue (e.g., a chatroom), an information source (e.g., a data
      feed), or a collection of data (e.g., a file).

Reflecting on my own usage, I have used SP in most of these types of
identifiers.  Some I use daily (user accounts and filenames).

/Simon

[kitten] spaces in SASL user names Peter Saint-Andre
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Simon Josefsson
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Nico Williams
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Peter Saint-Andre
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Peter Saint-Andre
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Chris Newman
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Peter Saint-Andre
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Simon Josefsson
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Alexey Melnikov
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names William Mills
Re: [kitten] spaces in SASL user names Peter Saint-Andre