One document matched: draft-jseng-idn-admin-03.txt

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INTERNET DRAFT                                     Editors:  James SENG
draft-jseng-idn-admin-03.txt              John C KLENSIN, Wendy RICKARD
16 June 2003                                       Authors:  K. KONISHI 
Expires December 2003                          K. HUANG, H. QIAN, Y. KO
 
    Internationalized Domain Names Registration and Administration
              Guideline for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean

Status of This Memo

This document is an Internet Draft and is in full conformance
with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026 except that the 
right to produce derivative works is not granted.

    Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet
    Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working
    groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
    documents as Internet Drafts.

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

    The list of current Internet Drafts can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.

    The list of Internet Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
    http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

Abstract

Achieving internationalized access to domain names raises many complex 
issues.  These are associated not only with basic protocol design--such 
as how names are represented on the network, compared, and converted to 
appropriate forms--but also with issues and options for deployment, 
transition, registration, and administration.  

The IETF Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Working Group focused its 
efforts on the development of a standards-track specification for access 
to domain names in a range of scripts that is broader in scope than the 
original ASCII.  During its efforts, it became clear that the appearance 
of characters with similar appearances and/or interpretations created 
potential for confusion, as well as difficulties in deployment and 
transition, and that those issues could best be addressed 
administratively rather than through restrictions embedded in the 
protocols.  

This document is an effort of the Joint Engineering Team (JET), a group 
composed of members of CNNIC, TWNIC, KRNIC, and JPNIC as well as other 
individual experts.  It offers guidelines for zone administrators -- 
including but not limited to registry operators and registrars -- and 
information for all domain names holders on the administration of domain 
names that contain characters drawn from Chinese, Japanese, and Korean 
scripts.  Other language groups are encouraged to develop their own 
guidelines as needed, based on these guidelines if that is helpful.  

Table of Contents 

1. Introduction                                                       

2.  Definitions, Context, and Notation 
2.1. Definitions and Context
2.2. Notation for Ideographs and Other Non-ASCII CJK Characters

3.  Scope of the Administrative Guidelines 
3.1. Principles Underlying These Guidelines                           
3.2. Registration of IDL                                              
3.2.1. Using the Language Variant Table
3.2.2. IDL Package                                                 
3.2.3.  Procedure for Registering IDLs 
3.3. Deletion and Transfer of IDL and IDL Package                    
3.4. Activation and Deactivation of IDL Variants 
3.4.1. Activation Algorithm
3.4.2. Deactivation Algorithm                   
3.5. Managing Changes in Language Associations                         
3.6. Managing Changes to Language Variant Tables             

4. Examples of Guideline Use in Zones                                

5. Syntax Description for the Language Variant Table
5.1 ABNF Syntax
5.2. Comments and Explanation of Syntax
                                                    
6. Security Considerations

7. Index to Terminology

8. Acknowledgments                                                

9. Authors’ Addresses                                                

10. Normative References                                             

11. Nonnormative References

1. Introduction

Domain names form the fundamental naming architecture of the Internet.  
Countless Internet protocols and applications rely on them, not just for 
stability and continuity, but also to avoid ambiguity.  They were 
designed to be identifiers without any language context.  However, as 
domain names have become visible to end users through Web URLs and 
e-mail addresses, the strings in domain-name labels are being 
increasingly interpreted as names, words, or phrases.  It is likely that 
users will do the same with languages of differing character sets--such 
as Chinese, Japanese and Korean (CJK)--in which many words or concepts 
are represented using short sequences of characters.  

The introduction of what are called Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) 
amplifies both the difficulty of putting names into identifiers and the 
confusion that exists between scripts and languages.  It also affects a 
number of Internet protocols and applications and creates additional 
layers of complexity in terms of technical administration and services.  
Given the added complications of using a much broader range of 
characters than the original small ASCII subset, precautions are 
necessary in the deployment of IDNs in order to minimize confusion and 
fraud.  

The IETF IDN Working Group [IDN-WG] addressed the problem of handling 
the encoding and decoding of Unicode strings into and out of Domain Name 
System (DNS) labels with the goal that its solution would not put the 
operational DNS at any risk.  Its work resulted in one primary protocol 
and three supporting ones, respectively: 

1. Internationalizing Host Names in Applications [IDNA]
2. Preparation of Internationalized Strings [STRINGPREP]
3. A Stringprep Profile for Internationalized Domain Names [NAMEPREP]
4. Punycode [PUNYCODE]

IDNA--which calls on the others--normalizes and transforms strings that 
are intended to be used as IDNs.  In combination, the four provide the 
minimum functions required for internationalization, such as performing 
case mappings, eliminating character differences that would cause severe 
problems, and specifying matching (equality).  They also convert between 
the resulting Unicode code points and an ASCII-based form that is more 
suitable for storing in actual DNS labels.  In this way, the IDNA 
transformations improve a user’s chances of getting to the correct IDN.  

Addressing the issues around differing character sets, a primary 
consideration and administrative challenge involves region-specific 
definitions, interpretations, and the semantics of strings to be used in 
IDNs.  A Unicode string may have a specific meaning as a name, word, or 
phrase in a particular language but that meaning could vary depending on 
the country, region, culture, or other context in which the string is 
used.  It might also have different interpretations in different 
languages that share some or all of the same characters.  Therefore, 
individual zones and zone administrators may find it necessary to impose 
restrictions and procedures to reduce the likelihood of confusion--and 
instabilities of reference--within their own environments.  

Over the centuries, the evolution of CJK characters--and the differences 
in their use in different languages and even in different regions where 
the same language is spoken--has given rise to the idea of "variants", 
wherein one conceptual character can be identified with several 
different Code Points in character sets for computer use.  This document 
provides a framework for handling such variants while minimizing the 
possibility of serious user confusion in the obtaining or use of domain 
names.  However, the concept of variants is complex and may require many 
different layers of solution, this guideline offers only one of the 
solution components.  It is not sufficient by itself to solve the whole 
problem, even with zone-specific tables as described below.  

Additionally, because of local language or writing-system differences, 
it is impossible to create universally accepted definitions for which 
potential variants are the same and which are not the same.  It is even 
more difficult to define a technical algorithm to generate variants that 
are linguistically accurate--that is, that the variant forms produced 
make as much sense in the language as the originally specified forms.  
It is also possible that variants generated may have no meaning in the 
associated language or languages.  The intention is not to generate 
meaningful "words" but to generate similar variants to be reserved.  So 
even though the method described in this document may not always be 
linguistically accurate--or need to be--it increases the chances of 
getting the right variants while accepting the inherent limitations of 
the DNS and the complexities of human language.  

This document outlines a model for such conventions for zones in which 
labels that contain CJK characters are to be registered and a system for 
implementing that model.  It provides a mechanism that allows each zone 
to define its own local rules for permitted characters and sequences and 
the handling of IDNs and their variants.  

2. Definitions, Context, and Notation

2.1. Definitions and Context

This document uses a number of special terms.  In this section, 
definitions and explanations are grouped topically.  Some readers may 
prefer to skip over this material, returning, perhaps via the index to 
terminology in section 7, when needed.  

2.1.1.  IDN: The term "IDN" has a number of different uses: (a) as an 
abbreviation for "Internationalized Domain Name"; (b) as a fully 
qualified domain name that contains at least one label that contains 
characters not appearing in ASCII, specifically not in the subset of 
ASCII recommended for domain names (the so-called "hostname" or "LDH" 
subset, see RFC1035 [STD13]); (c) as a label of a domain name that 
contains at least one character beyond ASCII; (d) as a Unicode string to 
be processed by Nameprep; (e) as a string that is an output from 
Nameprep; (f) as a string that is the result of processing through both 
Nameprep and conversion into Punycode; (g) as the abbreviation of an IDN 
(more properly, IDL) Package, in the terminology of this document; (h) 
as the abbreviation of the IETF IDN Working Group; (g) as the 
abbreviation of the ICANN IDN Committee; and (h) as standing for other 
IDN activities in other companies/organizations.  

Because of the potential confusion, this document uses the term "IDN" as 
an abbreviation for Internationalized Domain Name and, specifically, in 
the second sense described in (b) above.  It uses "IDL," defined 
immediately below, to refer to Internationalized Domain Labels.  

2.1.2.  IDL: This document provides a guideline to be applied on a 
per-zone basis, one label at a time.  Therefore, the term 
"Internationalized Domain Label" or "IDL" will be used instead of the 
more general term "IDN" or its equivalents.  The processing 
specifications of this document may be applied, in some zones, to ASCII 
characters also, if those characters are specified as valid in a 
Language Variant Table (see below).  Hence, in some zones, an IDL may 
contain or consist entirely of "LDH" characters.  

2.1.3.  FQDN: A fully qualified domain name, one that explicitly 
contains all labels, including a Top-Level Domain (TLD) name.  In this 
context, a TLD name is one whose label appears in a nameserver record in 
the root zone.  The term "Domain Name Label" refers to any label of a 
FQDN.  

2.1.4.  Registration: In this document, the term "registration" refers 
to the process by which a potential domain name holder requests that a 
label be placed in the DNS either as an individual name within a domain 
or as a subdomain delegation from another domain name holder.  In the 
case of a successful registration, the label or delegation records are 
placed in the relevant zone file, or, more specifically, they are 
"activated" or made "active" and additional IDLs may be reserved as part 
of an "IDL Package" (see below).  The guidelines presented here are 
recommended for all zones--at any hierarchy level--in which CJK 
characters are to appear and not just domains at the first or second 
level.  

2.1.5.  RFC3066: A system, widely used in the Internet, for coding and 
representing names of languages.  It is based on an International 
Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for coding language 
names [ISO639], but expands it to provide additional precision.  
 
2.1.6.  ISO/IEC 10646: The international standard universal 
multiple-octet coded character set ("UCS") [IS10646].  The Code Point 
definitions of this standard are identical to those of corresponding 
versions of the Unicode standard (see below).  Consequently, the 
characters and their coding are often referred to as "Unicode 
characters." 

2.1.7.  Unicode Character: The term "Unicode character" is used here in 
reference to characters chosen from the Unicode Standard Version 3.2 
[UNICODE] (and hence from ISO/IEC 10646).  In this document, the 
characters are identified by their positions, or "Code Points." The 
notation U+12AB, for example, indicates the character at the position 
12AB (hexadecimal) in the Unicode 3.2 table.  For characters in 
positions above FFFF—i.e., requiring more than sixteen bits to 
represent--a five to eight-character string is used, such as U+112AB for 
the character in position 12AB of plane 1.  

2.1.8.  Unicode String: "Unicode string" refers to a string of Unicode 
characters.  The Unicode string is identified by the sequence of the 
Unicode characters regardless of the encoding scheme.  

2.1.9.  CJK Characters: CJK characters are characters commonly used in 
the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean languages, including but not limited to 
those defined in the Unicode Standard as ASCII (U+0020 to U+007F), Han 
ideographs (U+3400 to U+9FAF and U+20000 to U+2A6DF), Bopomofo (U+3100 
to U+312F and U+31A0 to U+31BF), Kana (U+3040 to U+30FF), Jamo (U+1100 
to 11FF and U+3130 to U+318F), Hangul (U+AC00 to U+D7AF and U+3130 to 
U+318F), and the respective compatibility forms.  The particular 
characters that are permitted in a given zone are specified in the 
Language Variant Table(s) for that zone.  

2.1.10.  Label String: A generic term referring to a string of 
characters that is a candidate for registration in the DNS or such a 
string, once registered.   A label string may or may not be valid 
according to the rules of this specification and may even be invalid for 
IDNA use.  The term "label", by itself, refers to a string that has been 
validated and may be formatted to appear in a DNS zone file.  
  
2.1.11.  Language Variant Table: The key mechanisms of this 
specification utilize a three-column table, called a Language Variant 
Table, for each language permitted to be registered in the zone.  Those 
columns are known, respectively, as "Valid Code Point", "Preferred 
Variant", and "Character Variant", which are defined separately below.  
The Language Variant Tables are critical to the success of the guideline 
described in this document.  However, the principles to be used to 
generate the tables are not within the scope of this document and should 
be worked out by each registry separately (perhaps by adopting or 
adapting the work of some other registry).  In this document, "Table" 
and "Variant Table" are used as short forms for Language Variant Table.  

2.1.12.  Valid Code Point: In a Language Variant Table, the list of Code 
Points that is permitted for that language.  Any other Code Points, or 
any string containing them, will be rejected by this specification.  The 
Valid Code Point list appears as the first column of the Language 
Variant Table.  

2.1.13.  Preferred Variant: In a Language Variant Table, a list of Code 
Points corresponding to each Valid Code Point and providing possible 
substitutions for it.  These substitutions are "preferred" in the sense 
that the variant labels generated using them are normally registered in 
the zone file, or "activated." The Preferred Code Points appear in 
column 2 of the Language Variant Table.  "Preferred Code Point" is used 
interchangeably with this term.  

2.1.14.  Character Variant: In a Language Variant Table, a second list 
of Code Points corresponding to each Valid Code Point and providing 
possible substitutions for it.  Unlike the Preferred Variants, 
substitutions based on Character Variants are normally reserved but not 
actually registered (or "activated").  Character Variants appear in 
column 3 of the Language Variant Table.  The term "Code Point Variants" 
is used interchangeably with this term.  

2.1.15.  Preferred Variant Label: A label generated by use of Preferred 
Variants (or Preferred Code Points).  

2.1.16.  Character Variant Label: A label generated by use of Character 
Variants.  

2.1.17.  Zone Variant: A Preferred or Character Variant Label that is 
actually to be entered (registered) into the DNS--that is, into the zone 
file for the relevant zone.  Zone Variants are also referred to as Zone 
Variant Labels or Active (or Activated) Labels.  

2.1.18.  IDL Package: A collection of IDLs as determined by these 
Guidelines.   All labels in the package are "reserved", meaning they 
cannot be registered by anyone other than the holder of the Package.  
These reserved IDLs may be "activated", meaning they are actually 
entered into a zone file as a "Zone Variant".   The IDL Package also 
contains identification of the language(s) associated with the 
registration process.   The IDL and its variant labels form a single, 
atomic unit.  

2.2 Notation for Ideographs and Other Non-ASCII CJK Characters.

For purposes of clarity, particularly in regard to examples, Han 
ideographs appear in several places in this document.  However, they do 
not appear in the ASCII version of this document.  For the convenience 
of readers of the ASCII version--and some readers not familiar with 
recognizing and distinguishing Chinese characters--most uses of these 
characters will be associated with both their Unicode Code Points and an 
"asterisk tag" with its corresponding Chinese Romanization [ISO7098], 
with the tone mark represented by a number from 1 to 4.  Those tags have 
no meaning outside this document; they are a quick visual and reading 
reference to help facilitate the combinations and transformations of 
characters in the guideline and table excerpts.  

3. Scope of the Administrative Guidelines

Zone administrators are responsible for the administration of the domain 
name labels under their control.  A zone administrator might be 
responsible for a large zone, such as a top-level domain (TLD)--whether 
generic or country code--or a smaller one, such as a typical second- or 
third-level domain.  A large zone is often more complex than its smaller 
counterpart.  However, actual technical administrative tasks--such as 
addition, deletion, delegation, and transfer of zones between domain 
name holders--are similar for all zones.  

This document provides guidelines for the ways CJK characters should be 
handled within a zone, for how language issues should be considered and 
incorporated, and for how Domain Name Labels containing CJK characters 
should be administered (including registration, deletion, and transfer 
of labels).  It does not provide any guidance for the handling of 
non-CKJ characters or languages in zones.  

Other IDN policies--such as the creation of new top-level domains 
(TLDs), the cost structure for registrations, and how the processes 
described here get allocated between registrar and registry if the zone 
makes that distinction--also are outside the scope of this document.  

Technical implementation issues are not discussed here either.  For 
example, deciding which guidelines should be implemented as registry 
actions and which should be registrar actions is left to zone 
administrators, with the possibility that it will differ from zone to 
zone.  

3.1. Principles Underlying These Guidelines

In many places, in the event of a dispute over rights to a name (or, 
more accurately, DNS label string), this document assumes "first-come, 
first-served" (FCFS) as a resolution policy even though FCFS is not 
listed below as one of the principles for this document.  If policies 
are already in place governing priorities and "rights", one can use the 
guidelines here by replacing uses of FCFS in this document with policies 
specific to the zone.  Some of the guidelines here may not be applicable 
to other policies for determining rights to labels.  Still other 
alternatives--such as use of UDRP [WIPO-UDRP] or mutual exclusion--might 
have little impact on other aspects of these guidelines.  

(a) Although some Unicode strings may be pure identifiers made up of an 
assortment of characters from many languages and scripts, IDLs are 
likely to be "words" or "names" or "phrases" that have specific meaning 
in a language.  While a zone administration might or might not require 
"meaning" as a registration criterion, meaning could prove to be a 
useful tool for avoiding user confusion.  

    Each IDL to be registered should be associated administratively 
    with one or more languages.  

Language associations should either be predetermined by the zone 
administrator and applied to the entire zone or be chosen by the 
registrants on a per-IDL basis.  The latter may be necessary for some 
zones, but it will make administration more difficult and will increase 
the likelihood of conflicts in variant forms.  

    A given zone might have multiple languages associated with it or 
    it may have no language specified at all.  Omitting specification 
    of a language may provide additional opportunities for user 
    confusion and is therefore NOT recommended.  

(b) Each language uses only a subset of Unicode characters.  Therefore, 
if an IDL is associated with a language, it is not permitted to contain 
any Unicode character that is not within the valid subset for that 
language.  

    Each IDL to be registered must be verified against the valid subset 
 of Unicode for the language(s) associated with the IDL.  That subset 
 is specified by the list of characters appearing in the first column 
    of the language and zone-specific tables as described later in this 
    document.  

If the IDL fails this test for any of its associated languages, the IDL 
is not valid for registration.  

Note that this verification is not necessarily linguistically accurate, 
because some languages have special rules.  For example, some languages 
impose restrictions on the order in which particular combinations of 
characters may appear.  Characters that are valid for the language--and 
hence permitted by this specification--might still not form valid words 
or even strings in the language.  

(c) When an IDL is associated with a language, it may have Character 
Variants that depend on that language associated with it in addition to 
any Preferred Variants.  These variants are potential sources of 
confusion with the Code Points in the original label string.  
Consequently, the labels generated from them should be unavailable to 
registrants of other names, words, or phrases.  

    During registration, all labels generated from the Character 
    Variants for the associated language(s) of the IDL should be 
    reserved.

IDL reservations of the type described here normally do not appear in 
the distributed DNS zone file.  In other words, these reserved IDLs may 
not resolve.  Domain name holders could request that these reserved IDLs 
be placed in the zone file and made active and resolvable.  

Zones will need to establish local policies about how they are to be 
made active.  Specifically, many zones, especially at the top level, 
have prohibited or restricted the use of "CNAME"s--DNS 
aliases--especially CNAMEs that point to nameserver delegation records 
(NS records).  And long-term use of long-term aliases for domain 
hierarchies, rather than single names ("DNAME records") are considered 
problematic because of the recursion they can introduce into DNS 
lookups.  

(d) When an IDL is a "name", "word", or "phrase", it will have Character 
Variants depending on the associated language.  Furthermore, one or more 
of those Character Variants will be used more often than others for 
linguistic, political, or other reasons.  These more commonly used 
variants are distinguished from ordinary Character Variants and are 
known as Preferred Variant(s) for the particular language.  

    To increase the likelihood of correct and predictable resolution of
    the IDN by end users, all labels generated from the Preferred 
    Variants for the associated language(s) should be resolvable.  

In other words, the Preferred Variant Labels should appear in the 
distributed DNS zone file.  

(e) IDLs associated with one or more languages may have a large number 
of Character Variant Labels or Preferred Variant Labels.  Some of these 
labels may include combinations of characters that are meaningless or 
invalid linguistically.   It may therefore be appropriate for a zone to 
adopt procedures that include only linguistically-acceptable labels in 
the IDL Package.  

    A zone administrator may impose additional rules and other 
    processing activities to limit the number of Character Variant 
    Labels or Preferred Variant Labels that are actually reserved or 
    registered.  

These additional rules and other processing activities are based on 
policies and/or procedures imposed on a per-zone basis and therefore are 
not within the scope of this document.  Such policies or procedures 
might be used, for example, to restrict the number of Preferred Variant 
Labels actually reserved or to prevent certain words from being 
registered at all.  

(f) There are some Character Variant Labels and Preferred Variant Labels 
that are associated with each IDL.  These labels are considered 
"equivalent" to each another.  To avoid confusion, they all should be 
assigned to a single domain name holder.  

    The IDL and its variant labels should be grouped together into a 
    single atomic unit, known in this document as an "IDL Package".  

The IDL Package is created upon registration and is atomic: Transfer and 
deletion of an IDL is performed on the IDL Package as a whole.  That is, 
an IDL within the IDL Package may not be transferred or deleted 
individually; any re-registration, transfers, or other actions that 
impact the IDL should also affect the other variants.  

The name-conflict resolution policy associated with this zone could 
result in a conflict with the principle of IDL Package atomicity.  In 
such a case, the policy must be defined to make the precedence clear.  

3.2. Registration of IDL 

To conform to the principles described in 3.1, this document introduces 
two concepts: the Language Variant Table and the IDL Package.  These are 
described in the next two subsections, followed by a description of the 
algorithm that is used to interpret the table and generate variant 
labels.  

3.2.1. Using the Language Variant Table

For each zone that uses a given language, each language should have its 
own Language Variant Table.  The table consists of a header section that 
identifies references and version information, followed by a section 
with one row for each Code Point that is valid for the language and 
three columns..  

a) The first column contains the subset of Unicode characters that is 
valid to be registered ("Valid Code Point").  This is used to verify the 
IDL to be registered (see 3.1b).  As in the registration procedure 
described later, this column is used as an index to examine characters 
that appear in a proposed IDL to be processed.  The collection of Valid 
Code Points in the table for a particular language can be thought of as 
defining the script for that language, although the normal definition of 
a script would not include, for example, ASCII characters with CJK ones.  

b) The second column contains the Preferred Variant(s) of the 
corresponding Unicode character in column one ("Valid Code Point").  
These variant characters are used to generate the Preferred Variant 
Labels for the IDL.  Those labels should be resolvable (see 3.1d).  
Under normal circumstances, all of those Preferred Variant Labels will 
be activated in the relevant zone file so that they will resolve when 
the DNS is queried for them.  

c) The third column contains the Character Variant(s) for the 
corresponding Valid Code Point.  These are used to generate the 
Character Variant Labels of the IDL, which are then to be reserved (see 
3.1c).  Registration--or activation--of labels generated from Character 
Variants will normally be a registrant decision, subject to local 
policy.  

Each entry in a column consists of one or more Code Points, expressed as 
a numeric character number in the Unicode table and optionally followed 
by a parenthetical reference.  The first column--or Valid Code Point--
may have only one Code Point specified in a given row.  The other 
columns may have more than one.  

Any row may be terminated with an optional comment, starting in "#".

The formal syntax of the table and more-precise definitions of some of 
its organization appear in Section 5.  

The Language Variant Table should be provided by a relevant group, 
organization, or body.  However, the question of who is relevant or has 
the authority to create this table and the rules that define it is 
beyond the scope of this document.  

3.2.2. IDL Package

The IDL Package is created on successful registration and consists of: 

a) the IDL registered

b) the language(s) associated with the IDL

c) the reserved IDLs

d) active IDLs--that is, "Zone Variant Labels" that are to appear in 
   the DNS zone file 

3.2.3. Procedure for Registering IDLs

An explanation follows each step.

Step 1. IN <= IDL to be registered and 
        {L} <= Set of languages associated with IN 

Start the process with the label string (prospective IDL) to be 
registered and the associated language(s) as input.  

Step 2. Generate the Nameprep-processed version of the IN, applying   
        all mappings and canonicalization required by IDNA.  

The prospective IDL is processed by using Nameprep to apply the 
normalizations and exclusions globally required to use IDNA.  If the 
Nameprep processing fails, then the IDL is invalid and the registration 
process must stop.  

Step 2.1. NP(IN) <= Nameprep processed IN 
Step 2.2. Check availability of NP(IN). 
          If not available, route to conflict policy.

The Nameprep-processed IDL is then checked against the contents of the 
zone file and previously created IDL Packages.  If it is already 
registered or reserved, then a conflict exists that must be resolved by 
applying whatever policy is applicable for the zone.  For example, if 
FCFS is used, the registration process terminates unless the conflict 
resolution policy provides another alternative.  

Step 3. Process each language. 
        For each language (AL} in {L}

Step 3 goes through all languages associated with the proposed IDL and 
checks each character (after Nameprep has been applied) for validity in 
each of them.  It then applies the Preferred Variants (column 2 values) 
and the Character Variants (column 3 values) to generate candidate 
labels.  

Step 3.1. Check validity of NP(IN) in AL. If failed, stop processing.

In step 3.1, IDL validation is done by checking that every Code Point in 
the Nameprep-processed IDL is a Code Point allowed by the "Valid Code 
Point" column of the Character Variant Table for the language.  This is 
then repeated for any other languages (and hence, Language Variant 
Tables) specified in the registration.  If one or more Code Points are 
not valid, the registration process terminates.  

Step 3.2.  PV(IN,AL) <= Set of available Nameprep-processed Preferred 
                        Variants of NP(IN) in AL

Step 3.2 generates the list of Preferred Variant Labels of the IDL by 
doing a combination (see Step 3.2A below) of all possible variants 
listed in the "Preferred Variant(s)" column for each Code Point in the 
Nameprep-processed IDL.  The generated Preferred Variant Labels must be 
processed through Nameprep.  If the Nameprep processing fails for any 
Preferred Variant Label (this is unlikely to occur if the Preferred 
Variants [Code Points] are processed through Nameprep before being 
placed in the table), then that variant label will be removed from the 
list.  The remaining Preferred Variant Labels in the list are then 
checked to see whether they are already registered or reserved.  If any 
are registered or reserved, then the conflict resolution policy will 
apply.  In general, this will not prevent the originally requested IDL 
from being registered unless the policy prevents such registration.  For 
example, if FCFS is applied, then the conflicting variants will be 
removed from the list, but the originally requested IDL and any 
remaining variants will be registered (see steps 5 and 8 below).  

Step 3.2A Generating variant labels from Variant Code Points.

Steps 3.2 and 3.3 require that the Preferred Variants and Character 
Variants be combined with the original IDL to form sets of variant 
labels.  Conceptually, one starts with the original, Nameprep-processed, 
IDL and examines each of its characters in turn.  If a character is 
encountered for which there is a corresponding Preferred Variant or 
Character Variant, a new variant label is produced with the Variant Code 
Point substituted for the original one.  If variant labels already exist 
as the result of the processing of characters that appeared earlier in 
the original IDL, then the substitutions are made in them as well, 
resulting in additional generated variant labels.  This operation is 
repeated separately for the Preferred Variants (in Step 3.2) and 
Character Variants (in Step 3.3).  Of course, equivalent results could 
be achieved by processing the original IDL’s characters in order, 
building the Preferred Variant Label set and Character Variant Label set 
in parallel.  

This process will sometimes generate a very large number of labels.  For 
example, if only two of the characters in the original IDL are 
associated with Preferred Variants and if the first of those characters 
has three Preferred Variants and the second has two, one ends up with 12 
variant labels to be placed in the IDL Package and, normally, in the 
zone file.  Repeating the process for Character Variants, if any exist, 
would further increase the number of labels.  And if more than one 
language is specified for the original IDL, then repetition of the 
process for additional languages (see step 4, below) might further 
increase the size of the set.  

For illustrative purposes, the "combination" process could be achieved 
by a recursive function similar to the following pseudocode: 

Function Combination(Str)
  F <= first codepoint of Str
  SStr <= Substring of Str, without the first code point
  NSC <= {}

  If SStr is empty then
    For each V in (Variants of code point F)
      NSC = NSC set-union (the string with the code point V)
    End of Loop
  Else
    SubCom = Combination(SStr)
    For each V in (Variants of code point F)
      For each SC in SubCom
        NSC = NSC set-union (the string with the first code point V 
              followed by the string SC)
      End of Loop
    End of Loop
  Endif

  Return NSC 

Step 3.3.  CV(IN,AL) <= Set of available Nameprep-processed Character 
                        Variants of NP(IN) in AL

This step generates the list of Character Variant Labels by doing a 
combination (see Step 3.2A above) of all the possible variants listed in 
the "Character Variant(s)" column for each Code Point in the 
Nameprep-processed original IDL.  As with the Preferred Variant Labels, 
the generated Character Variant Labels must be processed by, and 
acceptable to, Nameprep.  If the Nameprep processing fails for a 
Character Variant Label, then that variant label will be removed from 
the list.  The remaining Character Variant Labels are then checked to be 
sure they are not registered or reserved.  If one or more are, then the 
conflict resolution policy is applied.  As with Preferred Variant 
Labels, a conflict that is resolved in favor of the earlier registrant 
does not, in general, prevent the IDL from being registered, nor the 
remaining variants from being reserved in step 6 below.  

Step 3.4.    End of Loop

Step 4. Let PVall be the set-union of all PV(IN,AL) 

Step 4 generates the Preferred Variants Label for all languages.
In this step, and again in step 6 below, the zone administrator may 
impose additional rules and processing activities to restrict the number 
of Preferred (tentatively to be reserved and activated) and Character 
(tentatively to be reserved) Label Variants.  These additional rules and 
processing activities are zone policy specific and therefore are not 
specified in this document.  

Step 5. {ZV} <= PVall set-union NP(IN) 

Step 5 generates the initial Zone Variants.  The set includes all 
Preferred Variants for all languages and the original Nameprep-processed 
IDL.  Unless excluded by further processing, these Zone Variants will be 
activated--that is, placed into the DNS zone.  Note that the "set-union" 
operation will eliminate any duplicates.  

Step 6. Let CVall be the set-union of all CV(IN,AL), set-minus {ZV}

Step 6 generates the Reserved Label Variants (the Character Variant 
Label set).  These labels are normally reserved but not activated.  The 
set includes all Character Variant Labels for all languages, but not the 
Zone Variants defined in the previous step.  The set-union and set-minus 
operations eliminate any duplicates.  

Step 7. Create IDL Package for IN using IN, {L}, {ZV} and CVall 

In Step 7, the "IDL Package" is created using the original IDL, the 
associated language(s), the Zone Variant Labels, and the Reserved 
Variant Labels.  If zone-specific additional processing or filtering is 
to be applied to eliminate linguistically inappropriate or other forms, 
it should be applied before the IDL Package is actually assembled.  

Step 8. Put {ZV} into zone file

The activated IDLs are converted via ToASCII with UseSTD13ASCIIRules 
[IDNA] before being placed into the zone file.  This conversion results 
in the IDLs being in the actual IDNA ("Punycode") form used in zone 
files, while the IDLs have been carried in Unicode form up to this 
point.  If ToASCII fails for any of the activated IDLs, that IDL must 
not be placed into the zone file.  If the IDL is a subdomain name, it 
will be delegated.  

3.3. Deletion and Transfer of IDL and IDL Package

In traditional domain administration, every Domain Name Label is 
independent of all other Domain Name Labels.  Registration, deletion, 
and transfer of labels is done on a per-label basis.  However, with the 
guidelines discussed here, each IDL is associated with specific 
languages, with all label variants--both active (zone) and reserved--
together in an IDL Package.  This quite deliberately prohibits labels 
that contain sufficient mixtures of characters from different scripts 
to make them impossible as words in any given language.  If a zone 
chooses to not impose that restriction--that is, to permit labels to 
be constructed by picking characters from several different languages 
and scripts--then the guidelines described here would be inappropriate.  

As stated earlier, the IDL package should be treated as a single atomic 
unit and all variants of the IDL should belong to a single domain-name 
holder.  If the local policy related to the handling of disagreements 
requires a particular IDL to be transferred and deleted independently of 
the IDL Package, the conflict policy would take precedence.  In such an 
event, the conflict policy should include a transfer or delete procedure 
that takes the nature of IDL Packages into consideration.  

When an IDL Package is deleted, all of the Zone and Reserved Label  
Variants again become available.  The deletion of one IDL Package does 
not change any other IDL Packages.  

3.4. Activation and Deactivation of IDL variants

Because there are active (registered) IDLs and inactive (reserved but 
not registered) IDLs within an IDL package, processes are required to 
activate or deactivate IDL variants within an IDL Package.  

3.4.1. Activation Algorithm 

Step 1. IN <= IDL to be activated and PA <= IDL Package

Start with the IDL to be activated and the IDL Package of which it is a 
member.  

Step 2. NP(IN) <= Nameprep processed IN

Process the IDL through Nameprep.  This step should never cause a 
problem, or even a change, since all labels that become part of the IDL 
Package are processed through Nameprep in Step 3.2 or 3.3 of the 
Registration procedure (section 3.2.3).  

Step 3. If NP(IN) not in {RV} then stop

Verify that the Nameprep-processed version of the IDL appears as a 
still-unactivated label in the IDL Package, i.e., in the list of 
Reserved Label Variants, {RV}.  It might be a useful "sanity check" to 
also verify that it does not already appear in the zone file.  
 
Step 4. {RV} <= {RV} set-minus NP(IN) and {ZV} <= {ZV} set-union NP(IN) 

Within the IDL Package, remove the Nameprep-processed version of the IDL 
from the list of Reserved Label Variants and add it to the list of 
active (zone) label variants.  

Step 5. Put {ZV} into the zone file

Actually register (activate) the Zone Variant Labels.


3.4.2. Deactivation Algorithm

Step 1. IN <= IDL to be deactivated and PA <= IDL Package

As with activation, start with the IDL to be deactivated and the IDL 
Package of which it is a member.  

Step 2. NP(IN) <= Nameprep processed IN

Get the Nameprep-processed version of the name (see discussion in the 
previous section).  

Step 3. If NP(IN) not in {ZV} then stop

Verify that the Nameprep-processed version of the IDL appears as an 
activated (zone) label variant in the IDL Package.  It might be a useful 
"sanity check" at this point to also verify that it actually appears in 
the zone file.  

Step 4. {RV} <= {RV} set-union NP(IN) and {ZV} <= {ZV} set-minus NP(IN) 

Within the IDL Package, remove the Nameprep-processed version of the IDL 
from the list of Active (Zone) Label Variants and add it to the list of 
Reserved (but inactive) Label Variants.  

Step 5. Put {ZV} into the zone file

3.5. Managing Changes in Language Associations 

Since the IDL package is an atomic unit and the associated list of 
variants must not be changed after creation, this document does not 
include a mechanism for adding and deleting language associations within 
the IDL package.  Instead, it recommends deleting the IDL package 
entirely, followed by a registration with the new set of languages.  
Zone administrators may find it desirable to devise procedures that 
prevent other parties from capturing the labels in the IDL Package 
during these operations.  

3.6. Managing Changes to the Language Variant Tables

Language Variant Tables are subject to changes over time, and these 
changes may or may not be backward compatible.  It is possible that 
updated Language Variant Tables may produce a different set of Preferred 
Variants and Reserved Variants.  

In order to preserve the atomicity of the IDL Package, when the Language 
Variant Table is changed, IDL Packages created using the previous 
version of the Language Variant Table must not be updated or affected.  

4. Examples of Guideline Use in Zones

To provide a meaningful example, some Language Variant Tables must be 
defined.  Assume, then, for the purpose of giving examples, that the 
following four Language Variant Tables are defined: 

Note: these tables are not a representation of the actual tables, and 
they do not contain sufficient entries to be used in any actual 
implementation.  

a) Language Variant Table for zh-cn and zh-sg

Reference 1 CP936 (commonly known as GBK)
Reference 2 zVariant, zTradVariant, zSimpVariant in Unihan.txt 
Reference 3 List of Simplified character Table (Simplified column)
Reference 4 zSimpVariant in Unihan.txt
Reference 5 variant that exists in GB2312, common simplified hanzi

Version 1 20020701 # July 2002

56E2(1);56E2(5);5718(2)            # sphere, ball, circle; mass, lump
5718(1);56E2(4);56E2(2),56E3(2)    # sphere, ball, circle; mass, lump
60F3(1);60F3(5);                   # think, speculate, plan, consider
654E(1);6559(5);6559(2)            # teach
6559(1);6559(5);654E(2)            # teach, class
6DF8(1);6E05(5);6E05(2)            # clear
6E05(1);6E05(5);6DF8(2)            # clear, pure, clean; peaceful
771E(1);771F(5);771F(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
771F(1);771F(5);771E(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
8054(1);8054(3);806F(2)            # connect, join; associate, ally
806F(1);8054(3);8054(2),8068(2)    # connect, join; associate, ally
96C6(1);96C6(5);                   # assemble, collect together


b) Language Variant Table for zh-tw

Reference 1 CP950 (commonly known as BIG5)
Reference 2 zVariant, zTradVariant, zSimpVariant in Unihan.txt
Reference 3 List of Simplified Character Table (Traditional column)
Reference 4 zTradVariant in Unihan.txt

Version 1 20020701 # July 2002

5718(1);5718(4);56E2(2),56E3(2)    # sphere, ball, circle; mass, lump
60F3(1);60F3(1);                   # think, speculate, plan, consider
6559(1);6559(1);654E(2)            # teach, class
6E05(1);6E05(1);6DF8(2)            # clear, pure, clean; peaceful
771F(1);771F(1);771E(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
806F(1);806F(3);8054(2),8068(2)    # connect, join; associate, ally
96C6(1);96C6(1);                   # assemble, collect together

c) Language Variant Table for ja

Reference 1 CP932 (commonly known as Shift-JIS)
Reference 2 zVariant in Unihan.txt
Reference 3 variant that exists in JIS X0208, commonly used Kanji

Version 1 20020701 # July 2002

5718(1);5718(3);56E3(2)            # sphere, ball, circle; mass, lump
60F3(1);60F3(3);                   # think, speculate, plan, consider
654E(1);6559(3);6559(2)            # teach
6559(1);6559(3);654E(2)            # teach, class
6DF8(1);6E05(3);6E05(2)            # clear
6E05(1);6E05(3);6DF8(2)            # clear, pure, clean; peaceful
771E(1);771E(1);771F(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
771F(1);771F(1);771E(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
806F(1);806F(1);8068(2)            # connect, join; associate, ally
96C6(1);96C6(3);                   # assemble, collect together

d) Language Variant Table for ko

Reference 1 CP949 (commonly known as EUC-KR)
Reference 2 zVariant and K-source in Unihan.txt

Version 1 20020701 # July 2002

5718(1);5718(1);56E3(2)            # sphere, ball, circle; mass, lump
60F3(1);60F3(1);                   # think, speculate, plan, consider
654E(1);654E(1);6559(2)            # teach
6DF8(1);6DF8(1);6E05(2)            # clear
771E(1);771E(1);771F(2)            # real, actual, true, genuine
806F(1);806F(1);8068(2)            # connect, join; associate, ally
96C6(1);96C6(1);                   # assemble, collect together

Example 1: IDL = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559) *qing2 zhen1 jiao4* 
           {L} = {zh-cn, zh-sg, zh-tw}

NP(IN) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
PV(IN,zh-cn) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
PV(IN,zh-sg) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
PV(IN,zh-tw) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
{ZV} = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)}
CVall = (U+6E05 U+771E U+6559), 
        (U+6E05 U+771E U+654E),
        (U+6E05 U+771F U+654E),
        (U+6DF8 U+771E U+6559), 
        (U+6DF8 U+771E U+654E),
        (U+6DF8 U+771F U+6559), 
        (U+6DF8 U+771F U+654E)}

Example 2: IDL = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559) *qing2 zhen1 jiao4*
           {L} = {ja}

NP(IN) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
PV(IN,ja) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)
{ZV} = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559)}
CVall = (U+6E05 U+771E U+6559), 
        (U+6E05 U+771E U+654E),
        (U+6E05 U+771F U+654E),
        (U+6DF8 U+771E U+6559), 
        (U+6DF8 U+771E U+654E),
        (U+6DF8 U+771F U+6559), 
        (U+6DF8 U+771F U+654E)}

Example 3: IDL = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559) *qing2 zhen1 jiao4*
           {L} = {zh-cn, zh-sg, zh-tw, ja, ko}

NP(IN) = (U+6E05 U+771F U+6559) *qing2 zhen1 jiao4*
Invalid registration because U+6E05 is invalid in L = ko

Example 4: IDL = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718) 
                 *lian2 xiang3 ji2 tuan2*
           {L} = {zh-cn, zh-sg, zh-tw}

NP(IN) = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
PV(IN,zh-cn) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
PV(IN,zh-sg) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
PV(IN,zh-tw) = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
{ZV} = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2),
       (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)}
CVall = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718),
        (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2),    
        (U+806f U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2),    
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)

Example 5: IDL = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
                 *lian2 xiang3 ji2 tuan2*
           {L} = {zh-cn, zh-sg}

NP(IN) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
PV(IN,zh-cn) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
PV(IN,zh-sg) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
{ZV} = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)}
CVall = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718),
        (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2),    
        (U+806f U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2),    
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)}

Example 6: IDL = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
                 *lian2 xiang3 ji2 tuan2*
           {L} = {zh-cn, zh-sg, zh-tw}

NP(IN) = (U+8054 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E2)
Invalid registration because U+8054 is invalid in L = zh-tw

Example 7: IDL = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
                 *lian2 xiang3 ji2 tuan2*
           {L} = {ja,ko}

NP(IN) = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
PV(IN,ja) = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
PV(IN,ko) = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)
{ZV} = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718)}
CVall = (U+806F U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+5718),
        (U+8068 U+60F3 U+96C6 U+56E3)}

5. Syntax Description for the Language Variant Table

The formal syntax for the Language Variant Table is as follows, using 
the IETF "ABNF" metalanguage [ABNF].  Some comments on this syntax 
appear immediately after it.  

5.1 ABNF Syntax

LanguageVariantTable = 1*ReferenceLine VersionLine 1*EntryLine
ReferenceLine = "Reference" SP RefNo SP RefDesciption [ Comment ] CRLF  
RefNo = 1*DIGIT
RefDesciption = *[VCHAR]
VersionLine = "Version" SP VersionNo SP VersionDate [ Comment ] CRLF
VersionNo = 1*DIGIT 
VersionDate = YYYYMMDD
EntryLine = VariantEntry/Comment CRLF
VariantEntry = ValidCodePoint  ";"
               PreferredVariant ";" CharacterVariant [ Comment ]
ValidCodePoint = CodePoint
RefList = RefNo  0*( "," RefNo )
PreferredVariant = CodePointSet 0*( "," CodePointSet )
CharacterVariant = CodePointSet 0*( "," CodePointSet )
CodePointSet = CodePoint 0*( SP CodePoint )
CodePoint = 4*8DIGIT  [ "(" Reflist ")" ]
Comment = "#" *VCHAR

YYYYMMDD is an integer, in alphabetic form, representing a date, where 
YYYY is the 4-digit year, MM is the 2-digit month, and DD is the 2-digit 
day.  

5.2. Comments and Explanation of Syntax

Any lines starting with, or portions of lines after, the hash 
symbol("#") are treated as comments.  Comments have no significance in 
the processing of the tables; nor are there any syntax requirements 
between the hash symbol and the end of the line.  Blank lines in the 
tables are ignored completely.  

Every language should have its own Language Variant Table provided by a 
relevant group, organization, or other body.  That table will normally 
be based on some established standard or standards.  The group that 
defines a Language Variant Table should document references to the 
appropriate standards at the beginning of the table, tagged with the 
word "Reference" followed by an integer (the reference number) followed 
by the description of the reference.  For example: 

Reference 1 CP936 (commonly known as GBK)
Reference 2 zVariant, zTradVariant, zSimpVariant in Unihan.txt
Reference 3 List of Simplified Character Table (Simplified column)
Reference 4 zSimpVariant in Unihan.txt
Reference 5 Variant that exists in GB2312, common simplified Hanzi

Each Language Variant Table must have a version number and its release 
date.  This is tagged with the word "Version" followed by an integer 
then followed by the date in the format YYYYMMDD, where YYYY is the 
4-digit year, MM is the 2-digit month, and DD is the 2-digit day of the 
publication date of the table.  

Version 1 20020701     # July 2002 Version 1

The table has three columns, separated by semicolons: "Valid Code 
Point"; "Preferred Variant(s)"; and "Character Variant(s)".  

The "Valid Code Point" is the subset of Unicode characters that are 
valid to be registered.  

There can be more than one Preferred Variant; hence there could be 
multiple entries in the "Preferred Variant(s)" column.  If the 
"Preferred Variant(s)" column is empty, then there is no corresponding 
Preferred Variant; in other words, the Preferred Variant is null.   
Unless local policy dictates otherwise, the procedures above will result 
in only those labels that reflect the valid code point being activated 
(registered) into the zone file.  

The "Character Variant(s)" column contains all Character Variants of the 
Code Point.  Since the Code Point is always a variant of itself, to 
avoid redundancy, the Code Point is assumed to be part of the "Character 
Variant(s)" and need not be repeated in the "Character Variant(s)" 
column.  

If the variant in the "Preferred Variant(s)" or the "Character 
Variant(s)" column is composed of a sequence of Code Points, then 
sequence of Code Points is listed separated by a space.  

If there are multiple variants in the "Preferred Variant(s)" or the 
"Character Variant(s)" column, then each variant is separated by a 
comma.  

Any Code Point listed in the "Preferred Variant(s)" column must be 
allowed by the rules for the relevant language to be registered.  
However, this is not a requirement for the entries in the "Character 
Variant(s)" column; it is possible that some of those entries may not be 
allowed to be registered.  

Every Code Point in the table should have a corresponding reference 
number (associated with the references) specified to justify the entry.  
The reference number is placed in parentheses after the Code Point.  If 
there is more than one reference, then the numbers are placed within a 
single set of parentheses and separated by commas.  
 
6. Security Considerations

As discussed in the Introduction, substantially-unrestricted use of 
international (non-ASCII) characters in domain name labels may cause 
user confusion and invite various types of attacks.   In particular, in 
the case of CJK languages, an attacker has an opportunity to divert or 
confuse users as a result of different characters (or, more 
specifically, assigned code points) with identical or similar semantics.  
These Guidelines provide a partial remedy for those risks by supplying 
a framework for prohibiting inappropriate characters from being 
registered at all and for permitting "variant" characters to be grouped 
together and reserved, so that they can only be registered in the DNS by 
the same owner.   However, the system it suggests is no better or worse 
than the per-zone and per-language tables whose format and use this 
document specifies.  Specific tables, and any additional local 
processing, will reflect per-zone decisions about the balance between 
risk and flexibility of registrations.  And, of course, errors in 
construction of those tables may significantly reduce the quality of 
protection provided.  

7. Index to Terminology

As a convenience to the reader, this section lists all of the special 
terminology used in this document, with a pointer to the section in 
which it is defined.  

Activated Label                 2.1.17  
Activation                      2.1.4
Active Label                    2.1.17  
Character Variant               2.1.14
Character Variant Label         2.1.16  
CJK Characters                  2.1.9  
Code point                      2.1.7
Code Point Variant              2.1.14
FQDN                            2.1.3  
Hostname                        2.1.1
IDL                             2.1.2  
IDL Package                     2.1.18  
IDN                             2.1.1  
Internationalized Domain Label  2.1.2
ISO/IEC 10646                   2.1.6  
Label String                    2.1.10  
Language name codes             2.1.5
Language Variant Table          2.1.11  
LDH Subset                      2.1.1
Preferred Code Point            2.1.13 
Preferred Variant               2.1.13 
Preferred Variant Label         2.1.15  
Registration                    2.1.4  
Reserved                        2.1.18
RFC3066                         2.1.5  
Table                           2.1.11
UCS                             2.1.6
Unicode Character               2.1.7  
Unicode String                  2.1.8  
Valid Code Point                2.1.12  
Variant Table                   2.1.11
Zone Variant                    2.1.17  


8. Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of:

- V.  CHEN, N.  HSU, H.  HOTTA, S.  TASHIRO, Y.  YONEYA, and other Joint 
Engineering Team members at the JET meeting in Bangkok, Thailand.  

- Yves Arrouye, an observer at the JET meeting in Bangkok, for his 
contribution on the IDL Package.  

- Those who commented on, and made suggestions about, earlier versions, 
including Harald ALVESTRAND, Erin CHEN, Patrik FALTSTROM, Paul HOFFMAN, 
Soobok LEE, LEE Xiaodong, MAO Wei, Erik NORDMARK, and L.M.  TSENG.  

9. Authors’ Addresses

James SENG
Infocomm Development Authority
8 Temasek Boulevard
#14-00 Suntec Tower Three
Singapore 038988
Phone: +65 9638-7085
E-mail: jseng@pobox.org.sg

Kazunori KONISHI 
JPNIC
Kokusai-Kougyou-Kanda Bldg 6F
2-3-4 Uchi-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 101-0047
Japan 
Phone: +81 49-278-7313
E-mail: konishi@jp.apan.net

Kenny HUANG
TWNIC
3F, 16, Kang Hwa Street, Taipei
Taiwan
TEL : 886-2-2658-6510
E-mail: huangk@alum.sinica.edu

QIAN Hualin
CNNIC
No.6 Branch-box of No.349 Mailbox, Beijing 100080
Peoples Republic of China
E-mail: Hlqian@cnnic.net.cn

KO YangWoo
PeaceNet
Yangchun P.O. Box 81 Seoul 158-600
Korea
E-mail: newcat@peacenet.or.kr

John C KLENSIN
1770 Massachusetts Avenue, No. 322
Cambridge, MA 02140
U.S.A.
E-mail: Klensin+ietf@jck.com

Wendy RICKARD
The Rickard Group
16 Seminary Ave
Hopewell, NJ  08525
USA
E-mail: rickard@rickardgroup.com

10. Normative References

[ABNF]      Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF, RFC 2234, D.
            Crocker and P.  Overell, eds., November 1997.  

[STD13]     Paul Mockapetris, "Domain names--concepts and facilities"
            (RFC 1034) and "Domain names--implementation and
            specification" (RFC 1035), STD 13, November 1987.


[RFC3066]   Tags for the Identification of Languages, RFC3066, 
            Jan 2001, H. Alvestrand.

[IDNA]      Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA), 
            RFC 3490, March 2003, Patrik Faltstrom, Paul Hoffman, 
            Adam M. Costello.  

[PUNYCODE]  Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for 
            Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA), 
            RFC 3492, March 2003, Adam M.  Costello.  

[STRINGPREP]Preparation of Internationalized Strings ("stringprep"), 
            RFC 3454, December 2002, P.  Hoffman, M.  Blanchet.  

[NAMEPREP]  Nameprep: A Stringprep Profile for Internationalized 
            Domain Names, RFC 3491, March 2003, P. Hoffman, M. Blanchet.

[IS10646]   A product of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, Work Item JTC1.02.18 
            (ISO/IEC 10646).  It is a multipart standard: Part 1, 
            published as ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000(E), covers the 
            Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane, and Part 2, 
            published as ISO/IEC 10646-2:2001(E), covers the 
            supplementary (additional) planes.  

[UNIHAN]    Unicode Han Database, Unicode Consortium
            ftp://ftp.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Unihan.txt.

[UNICODE]   The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard--Version
            3.0," ISBN 0-201-61633-5. Unicode Standard Annex #28
            (http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr28/) defines
            Version 3.2 of the Unicode Standard, which is definitive 
            for IDNA and this document.  
        
[ISO7098]   ISO 7098;1991 Information and documentation--Romanization
            of Chinese, ISO/TC46/SC2.

11. Nonnormative References

[IDN-WG]    IETF Internationalized Domain Names Working Group,
            idn@ops.ietf.org, James Seng, Marc Blanchet. 
            http://www.i-d-n.net/.

[IESG-IDN] "IESG Statement on IDN", Internet Engineering Steering Group, 
            IETF, 11 February 2003, 
            http://www.ietf.org/IESG/STATEMENTS/IDNstatement.txt.  

[ISO639]    "ISO 639:1988 (E/F)--Code for the representation of names
            of languages"--International Organization for
            Standardization, 1st edition, 1988-04-01.

PAFTECH AB 2003-20262026-04-24 18:08:35