Bernstein's misrepresentations of fact and quotes are frequent and well documented. Bernstein lacks credibility. Best to just ignore Bernstein's senseless drivel. ----- Original Message ----- From: D. J. Bernstein <djb@cr.yp.to> To: <idn@ops.ietf.org> Cc: <ietf@ietf.org>; <iesg@ietf.org>; <iab@isi.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 4:19 PM Subject: Re: [idn] WG last call summary > Once again: IDNA has received strong written objections from at least > fifteen regular WG participants and _hundreds_ of other people. > > Here are some typical quotes from IDNA proponents explicitly refusing to > take these objections into account: > > * ``Just protesting doesn't count, if an alternative or fix isn't > included''; > > * ``the Chair's responsibility ... is to move work along ... > discouraging discussion of problems ... for which realistic > solutions ... have not been proposed''; > > * ``unless you have a TC/SC solution which you willing to contributed > to the group, I consider this discussion closed''; > > * ``You have only repeated problems that we already knows. You have > not demonstrated any solution which is technical possible now.'' > > These responses are all missing the point. When a user objects to IDNA, > saying--for example---that IDNA will produce ``conflicts and chaos for > Internet users of Han characters,'' you can't dismiss his objection by > saying that you believe that the other proposals are even worse. > > As I commented before, the IETF procedures don't say ``It's okay to make > an incredibly destructive modification to the Internet protocol suite if > you have to _do something_.'' Until the IDN WG settles on a safe course > of action, we will have to stick to the status quo. > > I also summarized why people are objecting to IDNA: ``IDNA will cause a > tremendous amount of damage, including bounced email, web link failures, > widespread user confusion, and massive costs---much higher than > necessary---for software development and deployment.'' Crocker asserts > that ``such false claims have been dealt with repeatedly.'' Let's go > back to the videotape: > > * IDNA co-author Adam Costello claimed in an IDN message on Sun, 27 > May 2001 21:30:52 +0000 that, under IDNA, ``nothing will actually > break (mail will get through, web pages will load, etc).'' > > * After the IDN WG identified several serious interoperability > problems in the IDNA architecture---the result being that mail > would bounce, web links would fail, etc.---I challenged Costello's > ``nothing will actually break'' claim. > > * In an IDN message on Thu, 19 Jul 2001 04:31:48 +0000, Costello > admitted that IDNA _would_ break things, and that his previous > claim was wrong: ``I overstated it. I was wrong. Sorry.'' > (Naturally, he continued by saying that even more things would be > broken by another proposal.) > > I recently asked a simple question about how IDNA is supposed to work, > from a programmer's perspective: under UNIX, if LANG is en_US.UTF-8, > should the MH/NMH ``show'' mail-displaying program convert names from > the IDNA character set to UTF-8? Costello, aware that a ``yes'' answer > would cause interoperability problems and that a ``no'' answer would > mean that users see gobbledygook instead of non-ASCII glyphs, ignored > the question. > > ---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, > Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago >