Subject: Re: Multinational Internet or Balkanization?

From: Martin Duerst <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 15:32:32 +0900

At 09:28 06/03/01, JFC (Jefsey) Morfin wrote:
 >http://english.people.com.cn/200602/28/eng20060228_246712.html
 >http://www.interfax.cn/showfeature.asp?aid=10411&slug=INTERNET-POLICY-MII-DOMAIN%20NAME-DNS 

 >http://www.domainesinfo.fr/vie_extensions.php?vde_id=859
 >http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/06/02/28/1610242.shtml
 >Please look at the press tonight and tomorrow....
 >
 >The Chinese Names were with us for a couple of years. But they are now 
fully disclosed. The result raise a question. Is the IETF to:

You mix up technology and policy. Technology-wise, the Chinese are not
doing anything else than anybody else (read IDNA/Punycode,...),
plus probably some 8-bit stuff based on GB2312 and maybe even UTF-8
for backwards compatibility with earlier experiments.

Internationalization of the DNS, or whatever you want to call it,
works just fine (I don't think it's pretty, but that's a separate issue).
Most browsers already implement it, the rest is being updated.
So anybody who goes to China can get these names resolved there
(unless they are on a VPN or have their DNS servers preconfigured).
There is no need for a new IETF architecture at all, and even less
need for new buzzwords. The Internet is already multilingual;
the majority of Internet users is writing emails in languages other
than English, is reading and writing Web pages in  languages other
than English, and so on.

(Speaking in Phillip's terms, the IETF has already defined how
to add a 'j' key to a telephone, and most telephones already
have one, or an equivalent.)

Policy-wise, ICANN has moved extremely slowly on non-ASCII top level
domain names. They lost a lot of time, and they very much have to speed up. 
But that's completely independent from architecture and technology.

Also, it's only to a smaller part, if at all, an issue of who "controls"
ICANN. The main problem is that there are too many people at ICANN who
do not understand anything about foreign scripts, and rather than
making sure they get the necessary help, they have just been
paralized so far.

As for the three specific Han Ideograph TLDs,
the first (China/.cn equivalent) looks quite reasonable, although
it might have been possible to agree that TLDs in Han ideographs
can be one-letter.

For the other two, there are two problems:
1) They are to quite some extent language-specific,
    which is significantly different from .com and .net
    (much more like .company and .network). .com and .net,
    although having language-related origins, are codes
    used across languages.
2) It may be the first time that a country is creating/takeing
    over a gTLD. While I think that ultimately (and hopefully sooner
    rather than later), we need equivalents of gTLDs in other scripts,
    and while the question of "who gets to run a gTLD" is probably the
    most difficult for ICANN to decide, I don't think that it would be
    such a good idea to allocate gTLDs to countries.

Regards,    Martin.

 >- continue considering that globalization (internationalization of the 
Internet + localization of the foreign end) is its only doctrine, recently 
embodied by RFC 3066 Bis, that the Internet architecture must keep adding 
constraints over constraints to protect it, that such Chinese Names are an 
alt-root balkanization?
 >
 >- accept that there is an Internationalised US ASCII Internet decided by 
the US Congress, that there is an emerging Chinese Internet decided by the 
Chinese law; that there will be many other lingual and lateral internets 
decided by Govs, Corporations, empowered languages, Communities, users 
grassroots efforts; that their interoperable harmonization forms the 
Multilingual Internet; and that the ITEF architecture must be revisited to 
support them all as a single system?
 >
 >And the next question: should-not ICANN act accordingly? RFC 3935 says 
that the mission of the IETF is to influence the way people design, use and 
manage the Internet. The MoU with ICANN gives it IANA responsibility over 
names and numbers management. But here we face a fundamental architectural 
issue. Should it be left to an organization aiming at fostering competition 
in selling ASCII domain names and mudded in IDNs?
 >jfc
 >
 >
 >
 >_______________________________________________
 >Ietf mailing list
 >[email-masked]
 >https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf 

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:00:00 +0100

At 07:32 03/03/2006, Martin Duerst wrote:

> >The Chinese Names were with us for a couple of years. But they are 
> now fully disclosed. The result raise a question. Is the IETF to:
>
>for backwards cumented by a TF specialising in 
International Network architecture and transnetwork/transtechnology 
solutions. This calls for a generalised vision wich will probably 
better develop within the IGF. In the increasing number of people I 
know sharing that evaluation I am currently alone (and opposed on 
both sides) actively supporting that interoperability with IETF 
propositions should be maintained as much as possible. Or the lack of 
interoperability to be limited (this is what I succeded to do with 
RFC 3066 Bis). A solution is to keep informing the IETF through IETF 
Drafts and IESG appeals when interoperability/interintelligibility 
seem compromised. Another is to organise a structure assuming liaison 
as part of the Internet standard process. I documented that project 
as the IGFTF in my positive (on other grounds) appeal to IAB. I 
however delayed it to permit Brian to possibly update RFC 2026 such a 
project should strictly respect.

jfc

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:00:00 +0100

>for backwards compatibility with earlier experiments.

Dear Martin,
It would be no use to tell you that you confuse many things. I would 
only suggest you to test and understand rather than guessing. The 
Chinese set-up is very simple. But it belongs to a standard (every 
other global network system) culture which is not (yet?) the IETF culture.

>works just fine (I don't think it's pretty, but that's a separate issue).

As you see this Internationalization is widely spread around the 
world and phishing free. We started that debate at the WG-IDNA: the 
IDNA is a dead-end (this must not be confused with punycode).

>(unless they are on a VPN or have their DNS servers preconfigured).

You confuse the use of the DNS and its architecture.

>than English, is reading and writing Web pages in  languages other

I do not know what you call new buzzwords. Chinese TLDs are in the 
top zone (not in the root) for years. Externets are with the 
international netwok since 1977 (the name itself is inherited from 
Jon Postel) and multilingualism is with us since Babel. They are 
however three elements which currently are foreign to the IETF RFCs 
(a recent IAB meeting denied interest to the word multilingual while 
the rest of the world is making it a priority).

I know next week will be the "internationalization week", concluding 
with keynotes which raise interest throughout the world. But this is 
not multilingualisation of the network - as you show it yourself (cf. 
below). Please note that "internationalisation" is not a wrong thing. 
The US and the Chinese externet is internationalised. Multilingual 
Internet is that they harmonise together. Confusing 
internationalisation and multilingualisation is a layer violation, 
here is the error. Obviously some tuning is necessary to the 
internationalisation solutions once they are embedded in a global 
multilingualisation.

>have one, or an equivalent.)

I do not understand what Phillips means?
Is it cryptic for something, an image, a concept? I am lost.
Thank you to explain.

>domain names. They lost a lot of time, and they very much have to 
>speed up. But that's completely independent from architecture and technology.

ICANN did their job. Their IDN list is Two years old. They had an IDN 
committee in parallel of the WG-IDNA. The list has 2 mails. The 
committee was lost. We discussed that extensively at the WG-IDNA. The 
documentation is as confuse as unworkable. Phillip's corporation had 
invested a lot of money, time and efforts in this. They had the 
customer base, signed a significant number of registrants, and toured 
the world to explain and motivate Registrars, ISPs and ccTLDs. They 
were not alone. They only met scepticism, distinterest and lack of 
registrant renewal.

The problem is in the RFC. Nowhere else.

>making sure they get the necessary help, they have just been

If you genuinely believe this I cannot really comment. I can only 
propose you to consider a simple thing: ML.ML domain names are for 
local people. Local people communities have trustees named ccTLD 
Managers. ICANN is involved in gTLD and does not do well with ccTLDs. 
So what ICANN may or may not do about MDNs is of no real interest. 
There are now ten times more Chinese DNs in use thompatibility with earlier experiments.

Dear Martin,
It would be no use to tell you that you confuse many things. I would 
only suggest you to test and understand rather than guessing. The 
Chinese set-up is very simple. But it belongs to a standard (every 
other global network system) culture which is not (yet?) the IETF culture.

>works just fine (I don't think it's pretty, but that's a separate issue).

As you see this Internationalization is widely spread around the 
world and phishing free. We started that debate at the WG-IDNA: the 
IDNA is a dead-end (this must not be confused with punycode).

>(unless they are on a VPN or have their DNS servers preconfigured).

You confuse the use of the DNS and its architecture.

>than English, is reading and writing Web pages in  languages other

I do not know what you call new buzzwords. Chinese TLDs are in the 
top zone (not in the root) for years. Externets are with the 
international netwok since 1977 (the name itself is inherited from 
Jon Postel) and multilingualism is with us since Babel. They are 
however three elements which currently are foreign to the IETF RFCs 
(a recent IAB meeting denied interest to the word multilingual while 
the rest of the world is making it a priority).

I know next week will be the "internationalization week", concluding 
with keynotes which raise interest throughout the world. But this is 
not multilingualisation of the network - as you show it yourself (cf. 
below). Please note that "internationalisation" is not a wrong thing. 
The US and the Chinese externet is internationalised. Multilingual 
Internet is that they harmonise together. Confusing 
internationalisation and multilingualisation is a layer violation, 
here is the error. Obviously some tuning is necessary to the 
internationalisation solutions once they are embedded in a global 
multilingualisation.

>have one, or an equivalent.)

I do not understand what Phillips means?
Is it cryptic for something, an image, a concept? I am lost.
Thank you to explain.

>domain names. They lost a lot of time, and they very much have to 
>speed up. But that's completely independent from architecture and technology.

ICANN did their job. Their IDN list is Two years old. They had an IDN 
committee in parallel of the WG-IDNA. The list has 2 mails. The 
committee was lost. We discussed that extensively at the WG-IDNA. The 
documentation is as confuse as unworkable. Phillip's corporation had 
invested a lot of money, time and efforts in this. They had the 
customer base, signed a significant number of registrants, and toured 
the world to explain and motivate Registrars, ISPs and ccTLDs. They 
were not alone. They only met scepticism, distinterest and lack of 
registrant renewal.

The problem is in the RFC. Nowhere else.

>making sure they get the necessary help, they have just been

If you genuinely believe this I cannot really comment. I can only 
propose you to consider a simple thing: ML.ML domain names are for 
local people. Local people communities have trustees named ccTLD 
Managers. ICANN is involved in gTLD and does not do well with ccTLDs. 
So what ICANN may or may not do about MDNs is of no real interest. 
There are now ten times more Chinese DNs in use than they were IDN 
registrations. ICANN being paralized was in favor of the IDNA 
project. Permitting ccTLDs to develop their own strategy free.

It seems that Stephane Bortzmeyer wants to keep agressing me, but the 
work Stephane does at AFNIC for ccTLDs is admirable and of a real 
great help to their community. He knows the problem and the needs 
very well as being in charge of implementing the French IDNs. For 
reasons he could document, there is no French IDN in use (I do not 
even know if AFNIC supports them yet?).

>it might have been possible to agree that TLDs in Han ideographs

Internationalization! :-)

Internationalisation is when IETF geek knows better than local 
people. And will question their sovereign and societal decisions.
Someone told me once, "dont waste time documenting the difference 
between internationalization and multilingualisation: 
multilingualisation is respectfull humitity".

>    although having language-related origins, are codes

Inexact. They root in "Tymcom" (Tymnet Computer) and in "Telenet" 
(Dr. Larry Roberts' US national commercial network).

>    such a good idea to allocate gTLDs to countries.

Whatever we may think it seems that countries allocate themselves 
gTLDs, isn't it?

Please reread this exchange. This is the whole WG-LTRU again. You 
want to constrain the world so it fits into your own scheme. I want 
to serve the world so the technology supports its development bloom. 
With the same result: WSIS turned me right. China turns me right.

Take care.
jfc 

an they were IDN 
registrations. ICANN being paralized was in favor of the IDNA 
project. Permitting ccTLDs to develop their own strategy free.

It seems that Stephane Bortzmeyer wants to keep agressing me, but the 
work Stephane does at AFNIC for ccTLDs is admirable and of a real 
great help to their community. He knows the problem and the needs 
very well as being in charge of implementing the French IDNs. For 
reasons he could document, there is no French IDN in use (I do not 
even know if AFNIC supports them yet?).

>it might have been possible to agree that TLDs in Han ideographs

Internationalization! :-)

Internationalisation is when IETF geek knows better than local 
people. And will question their sovereign and societal decisions.
Someone told me once, "dont waste time documenting the difference 
between internationalization and multilingualisation: 
multilingualisation is respectfull humitity".

>    although having language-related origins, are codes

Inexact. They root in "Tymcom" (Tymnet Computer) and in "Telenet" 
(Dr. Larry Roberts' US national commercial network).

>    such a good idea to allocate gTLDs to countries.

Whatever we may think it seems that countries allocate themselves 
gTLDs, isn't it?

Please reread this exchange. This is the whole WG-LTRU again. You 
want to constrain the world so it fits into your own scheme. I want 
to serve the world so the technology supports its development bloom. 
With the same result: WSIS turned me right. China turns me right.

Take care.
jfc

---

From: Joe Baptista <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 11:45:00 -0500

> Whatever we may think it seems that countries allocate themselves 

Exactly.  And lets not forget the turkish multiligual TLDs which were 
tested by the Public-Root on behalf of the Turkish government.

Peter Dambier wrote an excellent post to the governance conferences 
(WSIS) which speculates - correctly in my not so humble opinion - that 
countries will indeed setup their own TLDs and roots.

In other words - before this is fixed we need the technical version of 
the tower of Babel before we all realize the best method to use network 
is co-operatively.  ICANN has shown us the ways of dictatorship and 
multiple roots will show us the way to a co-operative model.  It already 
exists - the public-root which was the first root system - to carry the 
chinese TLDs.

Sure there will be some serious technical difficulties - already exists 
with the China root, the public-root, the unifiedroot and every other 
root system out there.  These technical problem exist mainly for the 
IANA roots.  They get traffic from other roots when the users system 
attempts resolves domains from other roots using the IANA roots, and of 
course fails.  This traffic is now significant and one of the reasons 
for anycasting the IANA roots to reduce the impact on their root servers.

In short if IANA does not come along - it will become increasingly 
irrelevant and that has been demonstrated time and time again.  
Co-operation is the rule of law on the internet.  You don't co-operate - 
you don't communicate.  Its the users need to communicate which is the 
driving force behind the internet and those root that will remain relevant.

cheers
joe baptista

---

From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2006 17:57:39 +0100

> other global network system) culture which is not (yet?) the IETF culture.

well, what Martin writes makes sense to me.  I'm afraid I have no idea
what you are trying to say, however.

> I do not understand what Phillips means?

a complex number has a real and an imaginary part, and the imaginary
part is denoted with a "j" (well, engineers use "j", mathematicians tend
to use "i").  Phillip noted that MIT could use complex telephone numbers
for internal use without impacting worldwide telephone routing, since
they'd use an orthogonal name space.

> were not alone. They only met scepticism, distinterest and lack of 

I don't know the history, but the recent reports
  http://icann.org/topics/gnso-initial-rpt-new-gtlds-19feb06.pdf
and
  http://www.icann.org/general/idn-guidelines-22feb06.htm
seem promising to me.  there is wide consensus that new gTLD should be
added, and allowing IDNA labels as gTLD will force its way through.
adding xn--fiqs8s, xn--55qx5d and xn--io0a7i to the root servers may not
happen tomorrow, but I'm sure the process will take us there in
reasonable time.  but this is an ICANN issue, and not related to the
protocols at all.  the protocols have all the support we need to
implement whatever policy is decided.

> The problem is in the RFC. Nowhere else.

which RFC?
-- 
Kjetil T.

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Mar 2006 00:29:27 +0100

>what you are trying to say, however.

Dear Kjetil,
this is the core of the problem. I may use an imperfect Franglish 
which does not help. But I have two kinds of readers (through their 
responses).

- those who do not understand: mostly IETF, ICANN. They use to say: 
"I think, it seems, etc." and quote RFCs and ICANN documents.
- those who do, support and use. They mostly test, implement, ask for 
information, confirm, and use.

The problem is simple. There is a new internet under way. It has been 
created by the US decision to control the internationalised ASCII 
legacy internet. This leads other languages, nations, communities, 
corporations, etc. to consider copying the USA. China experiments it 
at the level of the largest linguistic disapora. I experiemented it 
three times, two at the international network level with its 
precedant other technologies and one through a internet technology test-bed.

This new internet is not a new technology (at least for the time 
being). It is a new way to use the existing technology to 
compartimentalise its operations. This is a phenomena I am used to 
name "externets". It is not a new standard, it is a configuration, 
like intranets, extranets, VPN, NATs, etc. It is certainly a basic 
component of the Multilingual Internet.

>they'd use an orthogonal name space.

OK. I use "i". I never thought Philips considered "complex numbers" 
because it would means he has absolutely not understood the set-up. 
And, if one was able to pick it immediately I thought he would be that one!

China is an example of externet. Its importance is that it works for 
three years and no one noticed. More: no one wanted to believe it 
existed. This proves that the Internet did _not_ suffer from it. The 
result is that the test is succesfull and many will now copy it.

The problem is that from my experiments and analysis, there is no 
problem in having two major externets. But there are problems in 
having three and more.

These problems can be easily solved. However solutions are technical 
but also ethical, societal, ecomical, political. I see two main options:

1. either the IETF understands, accepts and works (very fast) 
together with all the concerned parties:
   1.A either to stay the technical leader of the Internet technology
   1.B or to document interoperability for the Internationalised 
Legacy - broadly the ICANN space.

2. or the IETF does not want to reconsider RFC 3935 and its mission 
of global influence on those who design, use and manage the Internet. 
We have an increasing interoperability problem as new sources of 
solutions develop to support another vision of the digital ecosystem 
communications, than the one defined by RFC 3935.

I am disapointed as I think the option 2 is likely to happen. But, as 
an IETF deliverables user I will continue to press for 1. From 
experience I think the most resonable option for a most efficient 
IETF would be option "1.B". But I am ready to contribute to any 
option "1.A" effort.

>seem promising to me.

Did you use IDN yourself?

>there is wide consensus that new gTLD should be
>reasonable time.

a wide consensus which apparently does not include a 1/3 rd of the 
internet users and fully satisfies probably only 10% of them?
You refer to "root server"s: I am not sure how you would want to 
document them if you were to describe the real top zone organisation 
now. Please recall Vint Cerf's defintion of the authoritative root: 
the one with the largest number of users. GSMA was already a problem. 
The no-alternative root Chines space does not seem to use a root and 
soon to be the largest space in terms of users.

>but this is an ICANN issue, and not related to the

Chinese are extremely precise. They speak of experimentation. I 
talked of experimentation about my own test-bed. ICANN talked of 
experimentation in ICP-3. All these experimentations have to 
materialise in a consensus and in an architecture. It can be 
documented by the IETF; IETF can document the interoperability of its 
solutions; or IETF can disregard it and keeps maintaining what will 
still be used. As I said, most probably with a increasing 
interoperability problem. RFC 3066 Bis is the prototype of these kind 
of problems.

> > The problem is in the RFC. Nowhere else.

All of them. They share in a consistent vision. This vision is 
outdating. RFC 3935 is probably a good example: it would  be the 
first document for PESCI to update. RFC 3066 Bis is another one: it 
is purely local to the Internationalised US (industry) ASCII externet.

Please note, I said outdating, not outdated. IETF is such a pool of 
competence and of experience it would be fool not to try to keep it 
in the lead, or at least in the top loop.

jfc

---

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 22:57:10 +0800

On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 01:00:00PM +0100,
 JFC (Jefsey) Morfin <[email-masked]> wrote 

> the rest of the world is making it a priority).

The rest of the world *talks* about it, which does not make it a
priority. At least for my language, french, I would like to see less
talk and more actual creation of content. Because there are no
technical obstacles. The IAB is mostly right to have no interest
because the *standardization* work is already done: most Internet
protocols are fully international (and the few which are not, email
addresses being the obvious example, are currently under work).

We still have technical work (adding support in the software, on the
basis of published RFC) and content work (stop doing conferences and
start typing text). But it is not a matter for the IETF, which is a
standardization body.
 
> the work Stephane does at AFNIC for ccTLDs is admirable and of a
> real great help to their community.

There is a well-known children tale in France about flattery... ("The
Raven and the Fox")

> (I do not even know if AFNIC supports them yet?).

No, no IDN in ".fr", for non-technical reasons (write to your
congressman). And, no, the IAB or the ICANN cannot help here.

---

From: "JFC (Jefsey) Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 01:59:28 +0100

At 15:57 04/03/2006, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
>talk and more actual creation of content.

I am lost on this. Or you may refer to an AFNIC internal issues?
Otherwise I tend to observe that there is a real increase in actions 
over the issue, now it becomes clear to people that the MLDNs are not 
the whole Internet, and that the IETF/ICANN solution will not deliver.

>Because there are no

IAB should deal with architecture. That "most Internet protocols are 
fully international" does not help much the network to be 
multilingualised. It is even a blocking factor because there is 
certainly a confusion between the two layers.  "Most" does not make 
the Internet to be consistently internationalised (and this is not 
its RFC 3935 target).

In addition, the way they are "internationalized" is inadequate. 
IDNA, Langtags. This do not address users needs. Look at the 
registration and renewal rates.

>start typing text). But it is not a matter for the IETF, which is a

You may have not shared in the WG-IDNA. The work finished on the 
agreement that if the released proposition did not make it we could 
change it. The number of IDNs vs. the number of MLDN shows the need 
of a review - unless we think the grassroots solution is just fine.

>There is a well-known children tale in France about flattery... ("The

I acknowledge the true quality of your work. I certainly do not do 
anything more.

jfc