wdiff draft-adpkja-dnsop-special-names-problem-00.txt draft-adpkja-dnsop-special-names-problem-01.txt

Network Working Group J. Abley
Internet-Draft Dyn, Inc.
Intended status: Informational P. Koch
Expires: April 21, September 9, 2016 DENIC
A. Durand
ICANN
October 19, 2015
W. Kumari
Google
March 08, 2016

Problem Statement for the Reservation of Top-Level Domains in the
Special-Use Domain Names Registry
draft-adpkja-dnsop-special-names-problem-00
draft-adpkja-dnsop-special-names-problem-01

Abstract

The dominant protocol for name resolution on the Internet is the
Domain Name System (DNS). However, other protocols exist that are
fundamentally different from the DNS, but which have syntactically-
similar namespaces. and may or may not share the
same namespace.

When an end-user triggers resolution of a name on a system which
supports multiple, different protocols (or resolution mechanisms) for
name resolution, it is desirable that the protocol to be used is
unambiguous, and that requests intended for one protocol are not
inadvertently addressed answered using another.

[RFC6761] introduced a framework by which, under certain
circumstances, a particular domain name could be acknowledged as
being special. This framework has been used twice to make top-level domain
reservations, that is, particular top-level reserve top-
level domains (.local and .onion) that should not be used within the
DNS to accommodate avoid the possibility of namespace collisions in parallel use
of non-DNS name resolution protocols by end-users and avoid the possibility of
namespace collisions. protocols.

Various challenges have become apparent with this application of the
guidance provided in [RFC6761]. This document aims to document those
challenges in the form of a problem statement, to facilitate further
discussion of potential solutions.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on April 21, September 9, 2016.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. RFC6761 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5
4. Architectural considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6
5. Technical considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 8
6. Organizational considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9
6.1. Non-exhaustive list of external organizational
considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9
6.2. IETF Internal considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 10
6.2.1. Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 10
6.2.2. Technical criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 11
6.2.3. Name evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 12
6.2.4. The ICANN process to evaluate names . . . . . . . . . 12
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 14
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 15
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 15
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 15
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 15
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 15
Appendix A. Editorial Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 16
A.1. Venue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 16
A.2. Pithy Quotes from History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 16
A.3. Change History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 17
A.3.1. draft-adpkja-special-names-problem-00 . . . . . . . . 12 17
Appendix B. Change history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 17

1. Terminology

Clear and unambiguous use of terminology is important for the clear
formulation of any problem statement. The DNS protocol suffers from
imprecise and overloaded terminology (e.g. see
[I-D.ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology]) without confusing matters further
with RFC7719). The use of
terms and concepts from other naming systems that are similar,
but different. similar (but
different) simply confuses matters further.

In the interests of clarity, the following terms used in this
document are to be interpreted as follows:

Aardvark (n): a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native
to Africa; the only living species of the order Tubulidentata.
See <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark>. This is a
placeholder.

Registry (n): the Special-Use Domain Names Registry created by
[RFC6761] and published at <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
special-use-domain-names/special-use-domain-names.xhtml>

[This section to be completed following review and refinement of the
rest of the text.]

2. Introduction

In recent years, using

A number of systems use the last label of in a domain name (aka TLD) to act as a switch
to indicate how to treat name a different, non-DNS resolution has been experimented
using the framework of [RFC6761]. Examples process - examples of such
switches include:
.example (don't resolve), .local (use mDNS), mDNS) and .onion (use tor), any
TLD registered in IANA-maintained root-zone (use DNS).

Such usage, which a few commenters have referred to as "protocol
switching," is not limited to "protocol switch" in the strict sense
of indicating specific protocols on the wire. It could indicate to
switch to another name space (eg .onion), use a different protocol
(eg tor, or mdns), or indicate to use a local DNS scope by not using
the DNS root for name resolution (eg .home in homenet) or something
else altogether. Tor). This
switch practice is not explicitly documented anywhere. Indeed, anywhere, and the method
for accomplishing this varies by implementation. As an interesting
aside, the full semantics of domain names isn't really documented
anywhere either, although [Ed Lewis domain-names draft] is a current
attempt to catalog rectify this.

This technique of using the last label as a switch has a number of
properties which make it attractive to people implementing alternate
name resolution systems, including:

o The names can follow the common DNS syntax of LDH labels,
separated by dots. This means that these names can be entered in
any application which takes exiting DNS names.

o The switch to the new resolution process can be implemented in a
number of ways, such as custom application code, a shim in the
normal DNS resolution process, or on the system's configured DNS
servers.

o The names "look" like names to users.

At this point, one should note RFC6303, which already defines
"locally served zones", with the important difference that per
RFC6303 the names get registered for special treatment if they are
already special - they are not declared special by the precedents. registration.

[RFC6761] defines ways to reserve domain names and is now used could be read to
augment the technical exemption made in [RFC2860] (IETF-ICANN MoU):

"Note that (a) assignments of domain names for technical uses
(such as domain names for inverse DNS lookup), (b) assignments of
specialized address blocks (such as multicast or anycast blocks),
and (c) experimental assignments are not considered to be policy
issues, and shall remain subject to the provisions of this
Section 4."

The framework in [RFC6761]RFC6761 has recently been used to reserve
the .onion label, allowing it to be used as a switch to the tor
resolution process[RFC7686]. By the .onion label in the "Special-Use
Domain Names" registry [TODO: WK - Link], The Tor Project can be
assured that there will not be a .onion TLD created in the IANA
rooted DNS, and thus the possibility of collisions in the namespace
will be avoided.

The discussions in the DNSOP WG and the IETF Last Call processes
about the .onion registration in the Special Use Domain Names
registry (1,200 messages) have made it apparent that clarity about if
and how to treat this "protocol switching" practice would help a lot
in deciding the merit of future similar applications.

One possible outcome of the discussion would be to decline to
recognize such usage of domain names in the architecture, another one
is to formalize it and understand better understand the issues that come with
it.

An additional consideration is that names which follow the DNS syntax
(including those which use alternate name resolutions processes to
the DNS) are in the same namespace as names in the DNS. This means
that currently both the IETF (through [RFC6761]) and ICANN are making
allocations or reservations from a shared namespace. If this
continues to be the case, in order to avoid conflict, close
coordination is necessary.

3. RFC6761

In Section 5, [RFC6761] describes seven questions to be answered in
order to provide clear guidance about
justify how and why a particular domain name is special. These seven
questions can be broadly categorized as follows:

1. impact on end-users;

2. impact on applications;

3. impact on name resolution APIs and libraries;

4. impact on recursive resolvers;

5. impact on authoritative DNS servers;

6. impact on DNS server operators;

7. impact on DNS registries and registrars.

Answers

The intent of those seven questions was originally to serve as the
justifications for *why* the special-use registration should be
granted, demonstrating that it (a) provides a result that the
community judges to be good, and (b) the aforementioned good result
cannot reasonably be achieved in another way. The rough consensus
from significant discussion was that .onion did satisfy both (a) and
(b), but this was not clearly demonstrated by the answers to the
"seven questions". Furthermore, it is unclear if and how these
questions could reliably and unambiguously be used to make the
determination, leading to the conclusion that they are generally
inadequate for making the determination whether a particular domain
name qualifies as requiring special/different treatment.
Applications which follow the [RFC6761] process are likely to devolve
into a "beauty contest". More over, the answers to the seven
questions provide are not available in a machine readable form to
applications that want to follow [RFC6761].

So the answers to these seven questions can better be seen as
providing guidance to the corresponding seven audiences on how to
handle a special-use domain name once it has been reserved by
inclusion in the Registry.
However, they are inadequate Registry, and not as entrance filters for making inclusion
in the determination whether registry.

They specify desired behavior in the internet for handling a
particular domain name, not the basis for deciding whether the effort
to implement special behavior across all of those audiences is worth
the cost. This indifference to costs is not necessarily scalable.

The justification in [RFC6761] is concerned with the rationale of
reserving a domain name qualifies that precludes its subsequent use as being special a
generic top level domain name. However, the document fails to offer
such a rationale, and instead requires the justification of the
reserved name to include the provision of guidance to a number of
audiences (users, application developers, DNS resolver applications,
DNS resolution service operators, and name registries and registrars)
as to how to handle names that are listed in this registry. But this
guidance is not, in and of itself, an adequate rationale for the first place.
selection of a particular name value to be reserved in this registry.

What is missing in [RFC6761] is the consideration of the name itself.
If one were to contrast the procedures relating to the admission of a
name to the IETF Special Use Name registry to the processes
associated with the New gTLD Program operated by ICANN, then it is
evident that the IETF process does not admit many considerations
which appear to be areas of evaluation in the new gTLD program. More
on this in a subsequent section.

This memo proposes to categorize considerations related to the usage
of RFC6761 registry for protocol switches in 3 categories:
Architectural, Technical and Organizational. This memo then lists a
number of questions to drive the discussion. The list of issues
discussed here is non-exhaustive.

However, some voices have noted that [RFC6761] describes other
alternative special handling aside from protocol switches. That
alternative special handling must be considered carefully at the time
of publication of the defining RFC, regardless of the nature of the
special use.

4. Architectural considerations

The first thing to consider in this discussion is that not all names
(or domain names) are par part of the Domain Name System. See [ID-lewis-
domain-names] for an in-depth discussion on this topic.

At the time of writing, three two top-level domain names reserved by
inclusion in the Registry are used by name resolution protocols other
than the DNS:

LOCALHOST is used to refer to the host on which the name
resolution takes place, without reference to DNS and went through the DNS;

LOCAL [RFC6761] process:

.local is used by the Multicast DNS protocol specified in
[RFC6762] which is similar in some respects to the DNS, but which
uses a different well-known port number and is limited to a
particular multicast scope;

ONION is used to construct names that designate anonymous hidden services reachable
via the Tor network using onion routing.

The three two name resolution protocols described above are, to varying
degrees, different from the DNS, and the namespaces used in each
naming scheme are also different (albeit similar, in some cases). the .local
case). The top-level label is effectively being used as a name
resolution protocol identifier. The lack At the core of a more elegant way to specify a the issue is that
different "strings" that look like "domain names" (i.e. are within
the same name resolution protocol space) but are not DNS names are used interchangeably
in (for example) a the URI amounts to an
architectural oversight. However, it (or URN). In particular, DNS imposes constraints on name
syntax. An example of such constraints is the 64 octet limit per
label. Strings used in the ONION domain do not clear that this is still
a problem have that can be solved; it constraint.
It could be argued that in the absence of a more elegant alternative,
a pragmatic choice to embed protocol selectors as namespace tokens
has effectively already been made. The running code and effective
consensus in how it should be used by significant user bases should
not be discounted. Although the reservation of names in the DNS
namespace can be made at any level, the three two examples above
demonstrate use-cases for reservation at the top-level, and hence
that case must be considered.

The underlying discussion here is the tussle between the applications
and the network. Application architects see using special name tags
(a la .onion) as an easy way to get new features deployed. They
consider the hurdles of deploying new URI schemes such as
http:/onion/onion-name as too onerous and too slow to deploy for
their needs. Network architects worry of overloading the semantics
of DNS names and/or creating a name space that is larger than the DNS
namespace. They refer to bad precedents such as .uucp and .bitnet.

The fundamental point to consider here is the unicity (or
multiplicity) of the name space. Are we talking about one namespace
with different resolution protocols or independent name spaces?

It might it be helpful to point out that the property of interest
here is the assurance of uniqueness of a name, and another way of
thinking about the question is whether it applies across domain names
as people expect or need it to? None of this would matter if people
didn't expect names constructed according to whatever rules they're
following to be unique across a set of names that spans multiple
operating environments and resolution protocols.

In [RFC2826] the IAB noted that

"To remain a global network, the Internet requires the existence
of a globally unique public name space. The DNS name space is a
hierarchical name space derived from a single, globally unique
root."
"Maintaining a globally-unique public namespace that supports
different name resolution protocols is hence an architectural
requirement, and some facility for reservation of top-level
domains in the DNS is necessary."

If we were to accept the notion that the most significant last label of a domain name
is actually a protocol switch, it implies that we are actually building a catalog of
all top level domains that explain which are
are switches. and what resolution protocol each one invokes.
Note that such a catalog does not formally exist
today. It today, as [RFC6761]
is an exception list to the general case which is supposed to use
regular DNS as resolution protocol. Such a catalog may remain a
concept to guide this discussion or be implemented as an actual IANA
registry. In effect, it associates would associate TLDs with indications on how
applications and resolvers should treat them. However, such an
approach would leave open the question of not-yet-defined TLDs. No
resolution mechanism could be associated with those.

It should also be noted that there are other choice than using the
most significant label choices for a protocol switch. switch
other than reserving labels. In particular, a proposal to move those
protocol switches under a specific top level domain has been
discussed (.ALT). If that architecture choice is made, some of the
questions listed in the sections bellow below would become moot.

Note: [RFC6761] mentions the reserved names could be any label in any
random string, not just the rightmost one (or ones). However, this
creates a number of complications and has not seen much support in
the community as of now.

5. Technical considerations

Each of the seven questions posed by [RFC6761] has the potential to
expose
describe why special handling of particular names the requested name(s) in
applications by a particular audience. audience may be necessary. However,
aside from reserving the name, it is not entirely clear what any of
those audiences might reasonably further expect as a result of a successful
request to add a top-level domain to the Registry.

For example, reservation of a top-level domain by the IETF does not
guarantee that DNS queries for names within a reserved domain will
not be sent over the Internet. The requirements of the operators of
recursive resolvers in the DNS cannot be relied upon to be
implemented; the impact on the operators of DNS authoritative servers
hence cannot be reliably assumed to be zero. In the case of [I-
D.ietf-dnsop-onion-tld], leakage of ONION .onion queries on the Internet
might lead to disclosure of private information that, in some cases,
might pose a risk to the personal safety of end-users.

At the time of writing, the [RFC6761] registry does not include
direct guidance for any of the seven audiences, relying instead upon
a reference for each entry in the Registry to the document that
requested its insertion. Such documents might well be opaque to many
readers
readers; ([RFC6762] is a seventy-page protocol specification, for
example, which is arguably not the most expressive effective way to set
expectations of non-technical end-users).

Useful reservations of top-level domains should be accompanied by
documentation of realistic expectations of each of the seven
audiences, and the evaluation of particular requests should consider
the practical likelihood of those expectations being met and the
implications if they are not.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of additional questions that have
surfaced in discussion of requests for names to be added to the
Special Use Names registry:

What does it mean to have a "non-DNS" entry in the registry
described above?

Are applications supposed to check that registry to know what to
do?

Can/Should applications do this check dynamically?

What if an application makes this dynamic check and realizes the
name contains a switch it does not know how to treat?

Similar questions applies to resolvers (DNS and non-DNS), non-DNS); what is the
expected behavior?

One particular avenue of investigation would be to see if such
considerations could be encoded in machine understandable code in an
extension of the current [RFC6761] registry.

6. Organizational considerations

Organizational considerations can be broken down in two categories,
internal and external.

6.1. Non-exhaustive list of external organizational considerations

The policy surrounding the implementation and management of top-level
domains in the DNS has been developed using a multi-stakeholder
process convened by ICANN according to the MoU between ICANN and IETF
[RFC2860]. It is out of scope for this document to revisit that MoU.

Whilst discussing the particular attributes that make a domain name
special, [RFC6761] notes that "the act of defining such a special
name creates a higher-level protocol rule, above ICANN's management
of allocatable names on the public Internet."

Using top level domains as protocol switches blurs the line expressed
in

[RFC2860] draws a line between what is policy vs and what is technical.
A variety of opinions have been expressed regarding whether [RFC6761]
blurs this line. In particular, see http://www.circleid.com/
posts/20151222_whats_in_a_name/ for a certain viewpoint on the topic.
As noted earlier, it is out of scope for this document to analyse
this issue beyond noting that such a variety of views exist.

Taking a different perspective, it has been argued that [RFC6761]
specifically extends the DNS protocol to include special treatment
for names in the registry, and that there's nothing in 2860 at all
that limits the IETF's authority to change the protocol.

However, it should be noted that, if the IETF formalizes this were to formalize the
concept of protocol/name switch in the Internet architecture,
coordination will would be require between ICANN and IETF on such names.
Using the analogy described above of a catalog/registry of such
switches, care must be applied taken to make sure we do not end up with 2
process streams allowed to create entries without some form of
synchronization any
synchronization.

6.2. IETF Internal considerations

6.2.1. Process

[RFC6761] specifies the way in which "an IETF 'Standards Action' or
'IESG Approval' document" should present answers to the questions
described above (see Section 2), but does not describe the process by
which the answers to those questions should be evaluated.

For example, it is not clear who is responsible for carrying out an
evaluation. A document which requests additions to the Registry
might be performed by the IESG, by the IAB, by the DNSOP working
group, by an ad-hoc working group, by expert review or any
combination of those approaches. [RFC6761] provides no direction.

As an illustration of the inconsistency that has been observed
already, [RFC6762] was published as an AD-sponsored individual
submission in the INT area, and the IESG evaluation record does not
reveal any discussion of the reservation of the LOCAL .local top-level
domain in the DNS. [I-D.ietf-dnsop-onion-tld], however, was
published as a working group document through DNSOP, and an extensive
discussion by both the participants of DNSOP and the IESG on the
merits of the request took place. The evaluation process, in the
absence of clear direction, is demonstrably inconsistent.

We should point to RFC 5226 and explicitly quote the time definition of writing, the DNSOP working group charter does
"Standards Action" or "IESG Approval":

IESG Approval is not
clearly indicate that DNSOP intended to be used often or as a "common
case"; indeed, it has seldom been used in practice during the
period RFC 2434 was in effect. Rather, it is intended to be
available in conjunction with other policies as a fall-back
mechanism in the proper venue for case where one of the evaluation other allowable approval
mechanisms cannot be employed in a timely fashion or for some
other compelling reason. IESG Approval is not intended to
circumvent the public review processes implied by other policies
that could have been employed for a particular assignment. IESG
Approval would be carried out, although appropriate, however, in cases where expediency
is desired and there is strong consensus for making the assignment
(e.g., WG consensus).

So, while it also says is very interesting to note that matters regarding [RFC6761] was an AD
sponsored individual submission in spite of two active DNS related
WGs, 6762 is probably clean: it defines the
namespace are protocol and is itself on topic. Also, as pointed out in section 3.2), we are
standards track.

RFC 7686 however, while on standards track, does not dealing with a DNS-only issue, but also with an application
issue. define the TOR
protocol, so it was used to fulfill the 'standards action'
requirement by the letter. It contains normative references to non-
IETF protocols, which is not clear noteworthy.

A comparison of the two '7 question forms' reveals that at all if a DNS-centric venue such as DNSop least the
responses to questions 2, 3, and 4, differ significantly while there
is no defined way to communicate the right one difference to examine the merits affected
software entities.

An alternate view has been expressed with regard to the protocol
evaluation. It states that the authority belongs to the IESG to seek
whatever support it likes, within the established process, in making
standards decisions, including delegating evaluation of [RFC6761] candidates. a specific
registry change proposal to a WG or a directorate. The IESG might
have varied what guidance it sought, but that does not constitute
"inconsistency" under the process. That being said, more complete
evaluation guidance would be helpful to the IESG and the community.

6.2.2. Technical criteria

Regardless of the actual name being proposed as protocol and/or
namespace switch, it is also not clear what technical criteria should the
evaluation body should use to examine the merit of an application for
such a reserved name/
protocol name/protocol switch. For example, is large scale
prior deployment an acceptable criteria? A number of voices have
clearly answered "no" to that question as it would only encourage
"squatting" on names.

However, in the case of .local and .onion, those particular domain
names were already in use by a substantial population of end-users at
the time they were requested to be added to the Registry. Rightly or
not, the practical cost of a transition away from the requested
strings was argued as a justification for their inclusion in the
registry.

6.2.3. Name evaluation

With regard to the actual choice of name, [RFC6761] is silent. The
answers to the seven questions are expected to tell how a name,
presumably already chosen outside of the process, might be handled if
it's
it is determined to be a "special use" name but name. However, it is silent
on how to choose a name or how to evaluate a specific proposed name.

Going back

6.2.4. The ICANN process to evaluate names

Section 4.3 of [RFC2860] says:

Two particular assigned spaces present policy issues in addition
to the previous point technical considerations specified by the IETF: the
assignment of prior usage domain names, and the assignment of IP address
blocks.

This remains as true today as when it was written (2000). Domain
names have a number of considerations that have complex policy issues
that ICANN deals with and which the protocol, IETF may not be well equipped to
handle.

The ICANN process applicant have to go through to get a name is
described in the case applicant guide book
https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/agb/guidebook-full-
04jun12-en.pdf which is a 338 page document. It should however be
noted that the current round of LOCALHOST, LOCAL gTLD application is closed and ONION, those particular domain names
were already rules
may differ in use by the next round if and when it happens.

Considerations include, but are not limited to:

Geographical During the most recent round of new gTLD applications,
there were a substantial population number of end-users at applications for so call "geographic"
terms. These included applications for .amazon and .patagonia.
The .amazon application in particular was controversial - the
time they were
governments of Brazil and Peru requested that ICANN's Governmental
Advisory Committee (GAC) to be added issue a warning that granting .amazon
to Amazon would "prevent the Registry. Rightly or
not, use of this domain for purposes of
public interest related to the practical cost protection, promotion, and
awareness raising on issues related to the Amazon biome." The
IETF is not well suited to evaluating this sort of issue.

Brands / Trademark law If Wile E. Coyote approached the IETF
requesting that the IETF reserve .acme, a transition was argued as trademark held by a justification
for their inclusion
large corporation making anvils and giant slingslots, the IETF
could become embroiled in trademark lawsuit - and even if the registry. However, when formulating a
general IETF
were not, we have enough armchair lawyers that the discussions
would be extremely annoying :-). Closely related to this issue is
"protected designation of origin (PDO)" - for example, Champagne.

String similarity ICANN has an entire process for future such reservations, such prior evaluating the
string similarity / confusability between applied for (and
current) strings - for example, under what conditions would the
IETF be able to make a determination if someone attempted to use of
particular
RFC6761 to reserve .c0m?

International Organization Names Certain names may and organizations get
additional protection under trademark law - well known examples of
this are the RedCross/RedCrescent and the International Olympic
Committee (IOC). Whether or may not this should be the approach case is well
outside anything that the IETF should have an opinion on but,
undoubtedly, there are many within the community who will have an
opinion (and will want to argue it ad nauseam :-))

Offensive Terms There are a huge range of these, from the obscure /
archaic (waesucks, gadsbudlikins) to the more obvious and current
([xml2rfc-error], [xml2rfc-error] and [xml2rfc-error]. Certain
terms are sufficiently offensive that the IETF wants would have a hard
time coming to
choose.

The any useful consensus (other then "Eeeew!")

Going back to the IETF process used for the evaluation of .local and
.onion, one might ask the following questions questions:

For example, what consideration have there been in the
intellectual property rights in the reservation of a name in this
Special Use Name registry, and what procedures should be discussed by followed
in the IETF:

Is there case of a dispute over the rights to use a name in this
manner? Also, to what extent could such a reservation of a name
in this Special Use Names registry be used to block competing
interests and/or competing technologies? What are the competition
and consumer issues that need to reserve any name, as long as it is unique, be considered if the reservation
of a name in this registry causes some form of exclusive access
and reduced competitive access, or
is where there any technical reason is no ability for
consumers to reserve exercise choice in a particular name?

Are non-technical reasons situation where providers
compete in the offering of services?

A related consideration is that the current process of admission
to reserve the Special Use Name registry appears to admit no formal
assessment of environmental impact. Is the name that is proposed
to be entered into this registry already being used in local
contexts, with or without an association with DNS name resolution,
such that its use as a "specific" reserved name through an entry in this
registry, and its continued use in local contexts could cause harm
to users? To what extent can this impact be assessed, and what
level of impact is considered acceptable?

While the "seven questions" relate to altered behaviours by
specific audiences and users of names there is no explicit
consideration of the security in this process. Is demonstrated prior-usage the
registration of such a specific name a valid rationale?

When processing gTLD applications, ICANN has "safe" action for the IETF to take?
To what extent could the use of this reserved name be used in a process
hostile or malicious manner? What measures have been taken to review
those
mitigate or otherwise address such potential vulnerabilities?

ICANN has created an entire set of groups, organizations, committees,
processes and procedures to check if deal with the proposed names are potentially offensive evaluation of applied for
new TLDs, complete with a cadre of lawyers and policy people. Unless
the IETF were willing to
certain communities, do the same, it would have political ramifications, etc.. It a hard time
performing evaluation of the strings themselves, distinct from the
evaluation of the technology behind the name resolution system.

An alternate view has been expressed, that such a process is worth
asking if not
necessary because the IESG is the body that makes the decision on a
specific name reserved by RFC6761, and the IETF should have has a similar workable appeal
process in place to evaluate
specific proposed reserved names, and, if so, how such deal with any potential issues. However, looking at the
level of contention created in the ICANN process would
be implemented, around the choice of
certain names, serious doubts have been expressed to the scalability
and how appeals should be handled? ultimate viability of such an appeal process.

7. Security Considerations

This document aims to provide a problem statement that will inform
future work. Whilst security and privacy are fundamental
considerations, this document expects that that future work will include
such analysis, and hence no attempt is made to do so here. See among
other places SAC-057 [https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/
sac-057-en.pdf]

Reserving names has been presented as a way to prevent leakage into
the DNS. However, instructing resolvers to not forward the queries
(and/or by instructing authoritative servers not to respond) will
garantee that such leakage will not happen. The security (or
privacy) of an application MUST NOT rely on names not being exposed
to the Internet DNS resolution system.

8. IANA Considerations

This document has no IANA actions.

9. Acknowledgements

Your name here, etc.

10. References

10.1. Normative References

[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1034>.

[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
November 1987, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.

[RFC2860] Carpenter, B., Baker, F., and M. Roberts, "Memorandum of
Understanding Concerning the Technical Work of the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority", RFC 2860,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2860, June 2000,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2860>.

[RFC6761] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Special-Use Domain Names",
RFC 6761, DOI 10.17487/RFC6761, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6761>.

[RFC7686] Appelbaum, J. and A. Muffett, "The ".onion" Special-Use
Domain Name", RFC 7686, DOI 10.17487/RFC7686, October
2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7686>.

10.2. Informative References

[I-D.ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology]
Hoffman, P., Sullivan, A., and K. Fujiwara, "DNS
Terminology", draft-ietf-dnsop-dns-terminology-05 (work in
progress), September 2015.

[I-D.ietf-dnsop-onion-tld]
Appelbaum, J. and A. Muffett, "The .onion Special-Use
Domain Name", draft-ietf-dnsop-onion-tld-01 (work in
progress), September 2015.

[I-D.lewis-domain-names]
Lewis, E., "Domain Names", draft-lewis-domain-names-01 draft-lewis-domain-names-02
(work in progress), September 2015. January 2016.

[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918, February 1996,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.

[RFC2826] Internet Architecture Board, "IAB Technical Comment on the
Unique DNS Root", RFC 2826, DOI 10.17487/RFC2826, May
2000, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2826>.

[RFC6762] Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762>.

Appendix A. Editorial Notes

This section (and sub-sections) to be removed prior to publication.

A.1. Venue

An appropriate forum for discussion of this draft is for now the
dnsop working group.

A.2. Pithy Quotes from History

The question has arisen as to how the toplevel naming authority
decides who gets a toplevel name and who must get by with a non-
toplevel name. The suggestion was made by MOCKAPETRIS@USC-ISIF
that perhaps the existing toplevel nameholders might vote on
whether the applicant for a new toplevel name should be granted,
with a majority needed for approval. It seems to me this might
produce a clique whereby whoever initially gains power will hold
it and prevent its "enemies" from getting in too. This will make
the toplevel rather less than universal.

(E-mail from Robert Elton Maas to the namedroppers mailing list on 9
November 1983)

My basic point is that as a world-wide network evolves it is
ridiculous to force people to name resources in terms of one
static hierarchy which very closely resembles the current
internetwork topology (as the current scheme does). What we are
eventually going to require is a distributed expert for making
sense out of a name someone hands it. There will be no simple
algorithm to be written on one page of an RFC that will suffice to
resolve a name. Rather, a number of heuristics will let a
resolver make sense out of a given name by querying other experts
which it suspects may be more knowledgeable about the name than it
is, or by forwarding a piece of mail to an expert which is at
least one level closer to the destination in some hierarchy.

(E-mail from Peter Karp to the namedroppers mailing list on 8
February 1984)

A.3. Change History

A.3.1. draft-adpkja-special-names-problem-00

Initial draft circulated for comment.

Appendix B. Change history

[ RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication]

-00 to -01:

o Significant readability changes.

o [WK: Stopped at end of Sec 3]

-00:

o Initial draft circulated for comment.

Authors' Addresses

Joe Abley
Dyn, Inc.
103-186 Albert Street
London, ON N6A 1M1
Canada

Phone: +1 519 670 9327
Email: jabley@dyn.com
Peter Koch
DENIC

Email: pk@denic.de

Alain Durand
ICANN

Email: alain.durand@icann.org

Warren
Google

Email: warren@kumari.net