One document matched: draft-ietf-enum-void-00.txt



IETF ENUM WG                                                 R. Stastny
Internet Draft                                                    OeFEG
                                                              L. Conroy
Document:draft-ietf-enum-void-00.txt        Siemens Roke Manor Research
Expires: March 2005                                        October 2004



                   IANA Registration for Enumservice VOID
                      <draft-ietf-enum-void-00.txt>


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Copyright Notice


   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.



Abstract


   This document registers the Enumservice 'void' using the URI schemes
   'mailto:' and 'http:' as per the IANA registration process defined
   in the ENUM specification, RFC3761. This Enumservice may be used to
   indicate that the E.164 number (or E.164 number range) tied to the
   domain in which the enclosing NAPTR is published is not assigned for
   communications service. When such an indication is provided, an ENUM
   client can detect calls that will fail "early".


Conventions used in this document


   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in
   this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [1].



1. Introduction


   The Circuit Switched Network (CSN) of which the Public Switched
   Telephone Network, Integrated Services Digital Network, and Public 
   Land Mobile Network are part is designed to use E.164 numbers [2] as 
   native global addresses. If a potential caller has an E.164 number, 
   then to place a call using this address has needed a way to pass
   the request either directly or indirectly to systems "in" the CSN
   for them to forward.


   ENUM has introduced a mechanism to find other contact addresses when
   given an E.164 number. Thus, if the caller (or an agent somewhere in
   the call path) has access to the global DNS, they can use ENUM [3]
   to find alternative contacts to the E.164 number and place the call
   using whatever system was indicated in those contacts.


   However, ENUM entries may not exist for a given E.164 number for two
   reasons. Either the assignee who is entitled to register an ENUM
   domain associated with the E.164 number they hold has chosen not to
   request this registration, or the number is not currently assigned
   for communications service.


   In either situation, the caller has no other information and so no
   alternative to placing the call via the system that uses E.164
   numbers as global identifiers; at present, this is the CSN.



2. The problem


   At present, from the ENUM client's perspective, two possibilities
   exist: there is an ENUM domain that potentially holds alternative
   contacts, or there is no ENUM domain, in which case a query on ENUM
   will return a DNS response showing 'no such domain' (NXDOMAIN, code
   3)[4].
   
   This latter response is ambiguous. There are two potential reasons
   for the lack of an ENUM domain holding alternative contacts; either
   the assignee has chosen not to register the domain, or the E.164
   number is not assigned for communications service at present.
   
   If the number is assigned, then the caller can use the E.164 number
   to place the call via a network that uses such identifiers as global
   addresses (i.e. the CSN). If however, there is no domain because the
   associated E.164 number is not assigned for communications service,
   then any attempt to place the call via the CSN will fail.
   
   What would be useful is a mechanism "between" a registration holding
   NAPTRs with URIs and the lack of a domain registration. In this way,
   an entity who is responsible for E.164 numbers in a range can
   indicate that a particular number has not been assigned to anyone
   for communications service. For example, if a communications service
   provider has been allocated responsibility for delivering calls to
   endpoints identified with E.164 numbers in a block, then they may
   have some numbers in that block that are currently unused. These
   E.164 numbers are not used to terminate calls to end users.


   An originating user agent cannot differentiate this state from the
   one in which there is an end user as a number assignee, but that end
   user has have chosen not to "publish" other contacts. In effect, it
   would be more useful if the originating end user could receive a
   response that states "there is no service via this number", as
   opposed to "there may be service via this number, but there are no
   alternative contacts available".



3. The proposed solution


   We propose an explicit indication of this "number unassigned" state.
   This uses a NAPTR in the "enclosing" zone, with an Enumservice
   called VOID that should be taken as an assertion that the associated
   E.164 number is not assigned to an end user for communications
   service; it's an unused number.


   This NAPTR can also be used by an NRA to indicate number blocks that
   it has reserved or has not allocated, or has not assigned to a
   service provider.


   It is a matter for individual Countries whether or not they will 
   support (or require) information giving the identity of the current
   "owner" of an E.164 number within their responsibility to be made
   available via IRIS/Whois. Thus it may not be possible to use these
   protocols to find out the entity responsible for a number or number
   range, particularly where that number or range is not currently "in
   use".


   For this reason, we propose that the VOID indication also includes a
   contact address (an email address or a web address) by which the
   authority responsible for this number (or range) can be contacted.


   This may not be the same entity as the one that maintains the DNS
   service for that "enclosing zone"; often the NRA will sub-contract a
   Registry Operator to maintain the DNS, but it is the NRA who is the
   authority for the E.164 number range, not that Registry Operator.



4. ENUM Service Registration - VOID


   As defined in [3], the following is a template covering information
   needed for the registration of the Enumservice specified in this
   document.


      Enumservice Name: "VOID"


      Type(s): "void"


      Subtype(s): "mailto", "http", "https"


      URI Scheme(s): "mailto:", "http:", "https:"


      Functional Specification: The proposed solution in section 3.


      Definition of expected action:


         If a NAPTR with this Enumservice is received, it indicates
         that the queried E.164 number is currently unassigned to an
         end user for communications service.


         The recipient SHOULD treat this response as if they had
         received a "number not in service" indication from a
         terminating network.
         
         Note that, whatever subtype exists for this Enumservice, the
         generated URI is not a potential target for any current call.
         This contact (mailto:[5], http:[6], or https:[7]) MUST NOT be
         used in normal call processing but only if there is a non-call
         related reason to contact the number holder or authority.



      Security considerations: see section 6


      Intended usage: COMMON


      Authors:


         Lawrence Conroy, Richard Stastny (for authors contact
         details see Authors' Addresses section)


      Any other information that the author deems interesting:


         There are three possible subtypes (each with an associated URI
         scheme). In the first case, the subtype is "mailto" and has a
         generated URI scheme of "mailto:". This can be used to hold an
         email address of the entity responsible for the unassigned
         number or number range (such as the NRA, or the CSP to whom
         they have allocated a block of numbers, of which the current
         number is unused).


         The second case has a sub-type of "http" and has a generated
         URI scheme of "http:". The last case has a sub-type of "https"
         and an associated generated URI scheme of "https:". In both 
         these, the URI can be used to indicate a web site holding 
         information on the number (or number range) associated with the
         domain holding this NAPTR. They differ only in whether or not
         the URL "points to" a web site using either a standard or 
         TLS-secured connection.



5. Examples


(i)  VOID:mailto


     $ORIGIN 0.6.9.2.3.6.1.4.4.e164.arpa.
     3.8.0   NAPTR 10 100 "u" "E2U+void:mailto"
        "!^.*$!mailto:num-drama-info@nra.foo!"


   This indicates that the controller of the number block +441632960xxx
   does not provide telephony service via the number +441632960083; it
   is not assigned to an end user. Information on the status of this
   number may be obtainable by contacting the email address held in
   the regexp field.


(ii) VOID:http and VOID:https


     $ORIGIN 0.6.9.2.3.6.1.4.4.e164.arpa.
     4.8.0   NAPTR 10 100 "u" "E2U+void:http"
        "!^.*$!http:\/\/www.nra.foo\/drama-numbers\/index.html!"


     $ORIGIN 0.6.9.2.3.6.1.4.4.e164.arpa.
     4.8.0   NAPTR 10 100 "u" "E2U+void:https"
        "!^.*$!https:\/\/connect.nra.foo\/drama-numbers\/secure.html!"


   Both of these examples indicate that the controller of the number
   block +441632960xxx does not provide communication service via the
   number +441632960084; it is not assigned to an end user. Information
   on the status of this number may be obtained by making an HTTP
   connection to the web URL shown in the regexp field of the former
   example, or making a connection using TLS to the secure web URL held
   in the regexp field of the latter example.



6. Security considerations


   DNS does not make policy decisions about the records that it shares
   with an inquirer. All DNS records must be assumed to be available
   to all inquirers at all times. The information provided within an
   ENUM record set must therefore be considered to be open to the
   public.


   An analysis of threats specific to the dependence of ENUM on the
   DNS, and the applicability of DNSSEC[8] to these, is provided in[3].


   The specific issues applicable to this registration are:


   (i)   by including an email address, the responsible authority is
         making this available globally. They should expect that the
         published email address will be used to send unsolicited
         commercial email to them.


   (ii)  by publishing the email address, they expose the identity of
         the entity that has authority over this E.164 number (or range
         of numbers. This may also be the case if a web URL is used.


   (iii) by constructing a DNS response holding a VOID NAPTR, a third
         party could initiate a denial of service attack on the
         assignee of a number (or number range). The recipient of a
         "spoofed" response would react by assuming that the associated
         E.164 number is not in service, so denying calls to that
         number.


7. IANA Considerations


   This document requests registration of the E2U+void Enumservice with
   three sub-types (void:mailto, void:http and void:https) according to
   the guidelines and specifications in RFC 3761 [3] and the definitions
   in this document.



8.  Normative References


   1   Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
       Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.


   2   ITU-T, "The International Public Telecommunication Number
       Plan", Recommendation E.164 , May 1997.
   
   3   Faltstrom, P. and Mealling M., "The E.164 to Uniform Resource
       Identifiers (URI) Dynamic Delegation Discovery System (DDDS)
       Application (ENUM)", RFC 3761, April 2004.


   4   Mockapetris, P., "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities", STD
       13, RFC 1034, November 1987.


   5   Hofmann, P., Masinter, L., Zawinski, J, "The mailto URL scheme",
       RFC2368, July 1998.


   6   Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L.,
       Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -
       HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999;


   7   Rescola, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.



9.  Informative References


   8   Eastlake, D.,"Domain Name System Security Extensions", RFC 2535,
       March 1999


   9   Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
       9, RFC 2026, October 1996.


   10  Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF Technology",
       BCP 78, RFC3667, February 2004


   11  Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 79, RFC3668,
       February 2004



10.  Acknowledgments


   Thanks to Jim Reid for the substantial inputs regarding the
   mechanism to query the enclosed zone and to Patrik Faltstrom and
   Michael Mealling for their feedback.



11.  Author's Addresses


   Lawrence Conroy
   Siemens Roke Manor Research
   Roke Manor
   Romsey
   United Kingdom
   Phone: +44-1794-833666
   Email: lwc@roke.co.uk



   Richard Stastny
   OeFEG
   Arsenal Objekt 24, Postbox 147
   1140 Vienna
   Austria
   Phone: +43 664 420 4100
   Email: richard.stastny@oefeg.at



This draft expires in March 2005


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