On Tue, Jun 06, 2017 at 01:17:55PM -0700, The IESG <iesg-secretary@xxxxxxxx> wrote a message of 42 lines which said: > The IESG has received a request from the Domain Name System > Operations WG (dnsop) to consider the following document: - > 'Special-Use Domain Names Problem Statement' > <draft-ietf-dnsop-sutld-ps-05.txt> as Informational RFC For an issue which is quite contentious and sensitive, I think there are some points in the document that deserve a change. Biggest point: the IESG decided to freeze the RFC 6761 process <https://www.ietf.org/blog/2015/09/onion/> I regret this decision (RFC 6761 is still in force, it has not been deprecated or updated) and, unfortunately, registration of new Special-Use Domain Names is now impossible (pending an action on RFC 6761 that will probably never come). So, de facto, a regular process has been shut down, leaving the IETF without a possibility to register these domain names. Now, on the draft: * Section 3 says "No formal coordination process exists between the IETF and ICANN" This is not true, there is a formal liaison <https://www.ietf.org/liaison/managers.html> and it is even mentioned laster, in section 4.1.4. This issue was mentioned during the WGLC <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/OWt8DkBJ_JpIITF-R2YpwEhiwFs> * Section 3 says "Use of the registry is inconsistent -- some Special-Use Domain Name RFCs specify registry entries, some don't; some specify delegation, some don't." There is no inconsistency here. RFC 6761 says (in its section 5) that the reservation of a Special-Use Domain Name is free to choose the rules regarding resolution, as long as they are properly explained. * Section 4.2.2 says "the fact of its unilateral use by The Tor Project without following the RFC 6761 process" The onion TLD was in use in Tor since 2004, nine years before the publication of RFC 6761. It is grossly unfair to reproach not following an unpublished RFC. It was mentioned a long time ago <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/nr4ECaVw6PT09o2xdM3jrKllHBI> * Section 4.2.3 says "But it shares the problem that such names cannot be assumed either to be unique or to be functional in all contexts for all Internet-connected hosts." Unfortunately, because of the wide use of censorship through lying DNS resolvers, this problem is now part of our daily life. It would be nice if a name had the same global signification, but it is no longer true.