One document matched: draft-klensin-idna-5892upd-unicode70-00.txt




Network Working Group                                       J.C. Klensin
Internet-Draft                                              P. Faltstrom
Updates: 5982 (if approved)                                       Netnod
Intended status: Standards Track                           July 21, 2014
Expires: January 20, 2015

                     IDNA Update for Unicode 7.0.0
              draft-klensin-idna-5892upd-unicode70-00.txt

Abstract

   The current version of the IDNA specifications anticipated that each
   new version of Unicode would be reviewed to verify that no changes
   had been introduced that required adjustments to the set of rules
   and, in particular, whether new exceptions or backward compatibility
   adjustments were needed.  That review was conducted for Unicode 7.0.0
   and identified a problematic new code point.  This specification
   updates RFC 5982 to disallow that code point and provides information
   about the reasons why that exclusion is appropriate.  It also applies
   an editorial clarification that was the subject of an earlier
   erratum.

Status of this Memo

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

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

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

   This Internet-Draft will expire on January 20, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights





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   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text
   as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   2.  Change to RFC 5892 for new character U+08A1  . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Editorial clarification to RFC 5892  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   4.  Explanation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     4.1.  A related historical problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.2.  How this is being done . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
       4.2.1.  Backward compatibility and normalization . . . . . . .  7
       4.2.2.  A new contextual rule  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   5.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   6.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1.  Introduction

   The current version of the IDNA specifications, known as "IDNA2008"
   [RFC5890], anticipated that each new version of Unicode would be
   reviewed to verify that no changes had been introduced that required
   adjustments to IDNA's rules and, in particular, whether new
   exceptions or backward compatibility adjustments were needed.  When
   that review was carefully conducted for Unicode 7.0.0 [Unicode7],
   comparing it to prior versions including the text in Unicode 6.2
   [Unicode62], it identified a problematic new code point (U+08A1,
   ARABIC LETTER BEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE).  Section 2 of this specification
   updates the portion of the IDNA2008 specification that identifies
   rules for what characters are permitted [RFC5892] to disallow that
   code point.  It also provides information about the reasons why that
   exclusion is appropriate.

















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   As anticipated when IDNA2008, and RFC 5892 in particular, were
   written, exceptions and explicit updates are likely to be needed only
   if there is disagreement between the Unicode Consortium's view about
   what is best for the Standard and the IETF's view of what is best for
   IDNs, the DNS, and IDNA.  It was hoped that a situation would never
   arise in which the the two perspectives would disagree, but the
   possibility was anticipated and considerable mechanism added to RFC
   5890 and 5982 as a result.  It is probably important to note that a
   disagreement in this context does not imply that anyone is "wrong",
   only that the two different groups have different needs and therefore
   criteria about what is acceptable.  For that reason, the IETF has, in
   the past, allowed some characters for IDNA that active Unicode
   Technical Committee members suggested be disallowed to avoid a change
   in derived tables [RFC6452].  This document describes a case where
   the IETF should disallow a character that the various properties
   would otherwise treat as PVALID.

   This document provides the "flagging for the IESG" specified by
   Section 5.1 of RFC 5892.  As specified there, the change itself
   requires IETF review because it alters the rules of Section 2 of that
   document.

   Readers of this document are expected to be familiar with Unicode
   terminology [Unicode62] and the IETF conventions for representing
   Unicode code points [RFC5137].

   As a convenience to readers of RFC 5892 and to reduce the risks of
   confusion, this document also formally applies the content of an
   erratum to the text of the RFC (see Section 3) and so brings that RFC
   up to date with all agreed changes.

      [[RFC Editor: please remove the following comment and note if they
      get to you.]]

      [[IESG: It might not be a bad idea to incorporate some version of
      the following into the Last Call announcement.]]

      NOTE IN DRAFT to IETF Reviewers: The issues in this document, and
      particularly the extended discussion below of why this change to
      RFC 5892 is necessary and appropriate, are fairly esoteric.
      Understanding them requires that one have at least some
      understanding of how the Arabic Script works and the reasons the
      Unicode Standard gives various Arabic Script characters a fairly
      extended discussion.  It also requires understanding of a number
      of Unicode principles, including the Normalization Stability rules
      as applied to new precomposed characters and guidelines for adding
      new characters.    References are provided for those who want to
      pursue them, but potential reviewers should assume that the






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      background needed to understand the reasons for this change is no
      less deep in the subject matter than would be expected of someone
      reviewing a proposed change in, e.g., the fundamentals of BGP, TCP
      congestion control, or some cryptographic algorithm.

2.  Change to RFC 5892 for new character U+08A1

   With the publication of this document, Section 2.6 ("Exceptions (F)")
   of RFC 5892 [RFC5892] is updated by adding 08A1 to the rule in
   Category F so that the rule itself reads:

   F: cp is in {00B7, 00DF, 0375, 03C2, 05F3, 05F4, 0640, 0660,
                0661, 0662, 0663, 0664, 0665, 0666, 0667, 0668,
                0669, 06F0, 06F1, 06F2, 06F3, 06F4, 06F5, 06F6,
                06F7, 06F8, 06F9, 06FD, 06FE, 07FA, 08A1, 0F0B,
                3007, 302E, 302F, 3031, 3032, 3033, 3034, 3035,
                303B, 30FB}

   and then add to the subtable designated
   "DISALLOWED -- Would otherwise have been PVALID"
   after the line that begins "07FA", the additional line:

      08A1; DISALLOWED # ARABIC LETTER BEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE

   This has the effect of making the cited code point DISALLOWED
   independent of application of the rest of the IDNA rule set to the
   current version of Unicode.  Those wishing to create domain name
   labels containing Beh with Hamza Above may continue to use the
   sequence

      U+0628, ARABIC LETTER BEH
   followed by

      U+0654, ARABIC HAMZA ABOVE

   which was valid for IDNA purposes in Unicode 5.0 and earlier and
   which continues to be valid.

3.  Editorial clarification to RFC 5892

   Verified RFC Editor Erratum 3312 [RFC5892Erratum] provides a
   clarification to Appendix A and Section A.1 of RFC 5892.  This
   section of this document updates the RFC to apply that clarification.

   1.  In Appendix A, add a new paragraph after the paragraph that
       begins "The code point...".  The new paragraph should read:

   "For the rule to be evaluated to True for the label, it MUST be
   evaluated separately for every occurrence of the Code point in the






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   label; each of those evaluations must result in True."

   2.  In Appendix A, Section A.1, replace the "Rule Set" by

     Rule Set:
       False;
       If Canonical_Combining_Class(Before(cp)) .eq.  Virama Then True;
       If cp .eq. \u200C And
              RegExpMatch((Joining_Type:{L,D})(Joining_Type:T)*cp
         (Joining_Type:T)*(Joining_Type:{R,D})) Then True;

4.  Explanation

   [[NOTE IN DRAFT: Given the nature of this document, we believe this
   material belongs here.  It could, however, be moved to an appendix if
   anyone felt strongly about that.]]

   This section summarizes some of the discussions and reasoning that
   led to the conclusion and change in Section 2.  It should not be
   considered as either normative or authoritative.

   As the Unicode Standard points out at some length [Unicode62-Arabic],
   Hamza is a problematic abstract character and the "Hamza Above"
   construction even more so [Unicode62-Hamza].  Those sections explain
   a distinction made by Unicode between the use of a Hamza mark to
   denote a glottal stop and one used as a diacritic mark to denote a
   separate letter.  In the first case, the combining sequence is used.
   In the second, a precombined character is assigned.

   Unlike Unicode generally and because of concerns about identifier
   spoofing and attacks based on similarities, character distinctions in
   IDNA are based much more strictly on the appearance of characters;
   pronunciation distinctions are not considered.  So, for IDNA, BEH
   WITH HAMZA ABOVE is not-quite-tautologically the same as BEH WITH
   HAMZA ABOVE, even if one of them is written as U+08A1 (new to Unicode
   7.0.0) and the other as the sequence \u'0628'\u'0654' (feasible with
   Unicode 7.0.0 but also available in versions of Unicode going back at
   least to the original publication of RFC 5892).   Because the two
   are, for IDNA purposes, the same, IDNA expects that normalization
   (specifically the requirement that all U-labels be in NFC form) will
   cause them to compare equal.














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   If Unicode also considered them the same, then the principle would
   apply that new precomposed ("composition") forms are not added unless
   one of the code points that could be used to construct it did not
   exist in an earlier version (and even then is
   discouraged)[UAX15-Versioning].  When exceptions are made, they are
   expected to conform to the rules and classes in the "Composition
   Exclusion Table", with class 2 being relevant to this case
   [UAX15-Exclusion].  That rule essentially requires that the
   normalization for the old combining sequence to itself be retained
   (for stability) but that the newly-added character be treated as
   canonically decomposable and decompose back to the older sequence
   even under NFC.  That was not done for this particular case,
   presumably because of the distinction about prounciation modifiers
   versus separate letters noted above.  Because, for IDNA and the DNS,
   there is a possibility that the composing sequence \u'0628'\u'0654'
   already appears in labels, the only choice other than allowing an
   otherwise-identical, and identically-appearing, label with U+08A1
   substituted to identify a different DNS entry is to DISALLOW the new
   character.

4.1.  A related historical problem

   At least three other grapheme clusters have been present for many
   version of Unicode and can be seen as involving issues similar to
   those for the newly-added ARABIC LETTER BEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE.  ARABIC
   LETTER HAH WITH HAMZA ABOVE (U+0681) and ARABIC LETTER REH WITH HAMZA
   ABOVE (U+076C) do not have decomposition forms and are preferred over
   combining sequences using HAMZA ABOVE (U+0654) [Unicode62-Hamza].  By
   contrast, ARABIC LETTER ALEF WITH HAMZA ABOVE (U+0623) decomposes
   into \u'0627'\u'0653' and ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE (U+0626)
   decomposes into \u'064A'\u'0654' so the precomposed character and
   combining sequences compare equal when both are normalized, as this
   specification prefers.

   There are other variations on this theme.  For example, ARABIC LETTER
   U WITH HAMZA ABOVE (U+0677) has a compatibility decomposition into
   the combining sequence \u'06C7'\u'0674'.

   Had the issues outlined in this document been better understood at
   the time, it probably would have been wise for RFC 5892 to disallow
   either the precomposed character or the combining sequence of each
   pair unless Unicode normalization rules cause the right thing to
   happen.  Failure to do so at the time places an extra burden on











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   registries to be sure that conflicts (and the potential for confusion
   and attacks) do not exist.   Oddly, had the exclusion been made part
   of the specification at that time, the preference noted above would
   probably have dictated excluding the combining sequence, something
   not otherwise done in IDNA2008.  Today, the only thing that can be
   excluded without the potential disruption of disallowing a
   previously-PVALID combining sequence is the newly-added code point so
   whatever is done, or might have been contemplated with hindsight, it
   would be somewhat inconsistent.

4.2.  How this is being done

   Questions have arisen has to why this specification makes the change
   to RFC 5892 by DISALLOWing U+08A1 as a simple exception (IDNA
   Category F, RFC 5892 Section 2.7) rather than either a backward-
   compatibility case (IDNA Category G, RFC 5982 Section 2.8) or
   modifying IDNA Category F to make Hamza (or Hamza Above, or combining
   Hamza generally) into CONTEXTO cases and specifying appropriate
   limitations in a new entry in the IANA IDNA Context Registry (as
   specified in RFC 5892 Section 5.2).  The subsections below explain
   why neither of those alternatives was chosen despite some discussion
   of each.

4.2.1.  Backward compatibility and normalization

   The "BackwardCompatible" category (IDNA Category G, RFC 5892 Section
   5.3) is described as applying only when "property values in versions
   of Unicode after 5.2 have changed in such a way that the derived
   property value would no longer be PVALID or DISALLOWED".   Because
   U+08A1 is a newly-added code point in Unicode 7.0.0 and no property
   values of code points in prior versions have changed, that category G
   does not apply.   If that section of RFC 5892 is replaced in the
   future, perhaps consideration should be given to adding Normalization
   Stability and other issues to that description but, at present, it is
   not relevant.

4.2.2.  A new contextual rule

   As the Unicode Standard points out at some length [Unicode62-Arabic],
   Hamza is a problematic abstract character and the "Hamza Above"
   construction even more so.  IDNA has historically associated
   characters whose use is reasonable in some contexts but not others
   with the special derived property "CONTEXTO" and then specified
   specific, context-dependent, rules about where they may be used.
   Because Hamza Above is problematic (and spawns edge cases, as
   discussed in the Unicode Standard section cited above), it was
   suggested that a contextual rule might be appropriate.   There are at
   least two reasons why a contextual rule would not be suitable for the
   present situation.






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   1.  As discussed above, the present situation is a normalization
       stability and predictability problem, not a contextual one.  Had
       the same issues arisen with a newly-added precomposed character
       that could previously be constructed from non-problematic base
       and combining characters, it would be even more clearly a
       normalization issue and, following the principles discussed there
       and particularly in UAX 15 [UAX15-Exclusion], might not have been
       assigned at all.

   2.  The contextual rule sets are designed around restricting the use
       of code points to a particular script or adjacent to particular
       characters within that script.  Neither of these cases applies to
       the newly-added character even if one could imagine rules for the
       use of Hamza Above (U+0654) that would reflect the considerations
       of Chapter 8 of Unicode 6.2.  Even had the latter been desired,
       it would be somewhat late now -- Hamza Above has been present as
       a combining character (U+0654) in many versions of Unicode.
       While that section of the Unicode Standard describes the issues,
       it does not provide actionable guidance about what to do about it
       for cases going forward or when visual identity is important.

5.  Acknowledgements

   The Unicode 7.0.0 changes were extensively discussed within the IAB's
   Internationalization Program.  The authors are grateful for the
   discussions and feedback there, especially from Andrew Sullivan and
   David Thaler.  Additional information was requested and received from
   Mark Davis and Ken Whistler and while they probably do not agree with
   the necessity of excluding this code point as their responsibility is
   to look at the Unicode Consortium requirements for stability, the
   decision would not have been possible without their input.  Several
   experts and reviewers who prefer to remain anonymous also provided
   helpful input and comments on preliminary versions of this document.

6.  IANA Considerations

   When the IANA registry and tables are updated to reflect Unicode
   7.0.0, code point U+08A1 should be identified as DISALLOWED,
   consistent with the change made in Section 2.

7.  Security Considerations

   This specification excludes a code point for which the Unicode-
   specified normalization behavior could result in two ways to form a
   visually-identical character within the same script not comparing
   equal.   That behavior could create a dream case for someone
   intending to confuse the user by use of a domain name that looked
   identical to another one, was entirely in the same script, but was
   still considered different (see, for example, the discussion of false
   negatives in identifier comparison in Section 2.1 of RFC 6943
   [RFC6943]).  This exclusion therefore should improve Internet
   security.


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8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [RFC5137]  Klensin, J., "ASCII Escaping of Unicode Characters", BCP
              137, RFC 5137, February 2008.

   [RFC5890]  Klensin, J., "Internationalized Domain Names for
              Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework",
              RFC 5890, August 2010.

   [RFC5892Erratum]
              "RFC5892, "The Unicode Code Points and Internationalized
              Domain Names for Applications (IDNA)", August 2010, Errata
              ID: 3312", Errata ID 3312, August 2012, <http://www.rfc-
              editor.org/errata_search.php?rfc=5892>.

   [RFC5892]  Faltstrom, P., "The Unicode Code Points and
              Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA)",
              RFC 5892, August 2010.

   [RFC6943]  Thaler, D., "Issues in Identifier Comparison for Security
              Purposes", RFC 6943, May 2013.

   [UAX15-Exclusion]
              Davis, M., Ed., "Unicode Standard Annex #15: Unicode
              Normalization Forms, Section 5", June 2014, <http://
              www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/
              #Primary_Exclusion_List_Table>.

   [UAX15-Versioning]
              Davis, M., Ed., "Unicode Standard Annex #15: Unicode
              Normalization Forms, Section 3", June 2014, <http://
              www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/#Versioning>.

   [Unicode62-Arabic]
              "The Unicode Standard, Version 6.2.0, ob.cit., Chapter 8",
              Chapter 8, 2012, <http://www.unicode.org/versions/
              Unicode6.2.0/ch08.pdf>.

              Subsection titled "Encoding Principles", paragraph
              numbered 4, starting on page 251.

   [Unicode62-Hamza]
              "The Unicode Standard, Version 6.2.0, ob.cit., Chapter 8",
              Chapter 8, 2012, <http://www.unicode.org/versions/
              Unicode6.2.0/ch08.pdf>.

              Subsection titled "Combining Hamza Above" starting on page
              263.

   [Unicode62]


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              The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              6.2.0", ISBN 978-1-936213-07-8, 2012, <http://
              www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.2.0/>.

              Preferred citation: The Unicode Consortium.  The Unicode
              Standard, Version 6.2.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode
              Consortium, 2012. ISBN 978-1-936213-07-8)

   [Unicode7]
              The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, Version
              7.0.0", ISBN 978-1-936213-09-2, 2014, <http://
              www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode7.0.0/>.

              Preferred Citation: The Unicode Consortium.  The Unicode
              Standard, Version 7.0.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode
              Consortium, 2014.  ISBN 978-1-936213-09-2)

8.2.  Informative References

   [RFC6452]  Faltstrom, P. and P. Hoffman, "The Unicode Code Points and
              Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA) -
              Unicode 6.0", RFC 6452, November 2011.

Authors' Addresses

   John C Klensin
   1770 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 322
   Cambridge, MA 02140
   USA
   
   Phone: +1 617 245 1457
   Email: john-ietf@jck.com


   Patrik Faltstrom
   Netnod
   Franzengatan 5
   Stockholm, 112 51
   Sweden
   
   Phone: +46 70 6059051
   Email: paf@netnod.se












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