ietf-smime
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: consisten use of top-level oid branch name joint-iso-itu-t(2)

2009-06-17 04:47:13

Tom,

I am not sure what draft you are referring to, but we spent a lot of time at the last Tokyo meeting to ensure that an additional Unicode label could be added to a high-level arc without requiring any changes to zone files for nodes beneath the affected node. This is acheivable by use of a combination of CNAME and DNAME records in the DNS. Use of those records for this purpose will be fully described either in the main Standard or as an Implementors Guide.

What you are missing is "long arcs". A long arc can go from the root to any lower-level node. It does not have a number, only one or more Unicode labels (unambiguous among all arcs from the root - long or normal). It "expands" into a sequence of normal arcs to the same node, identified in canonical (numerical) form.

So as far as the DNS is concerned, there are arcs from the root in addition to the three you are talking about, and the root zone files point directly to the servers associated with those lower level nodes (assuming the administrations of those nodes choose to run a DNS server, otherwise you just get information about children).

The ORS work is not yet complete, and there are some dangling threads, in particular xase-folded matching and the use of %encoding or punycode for non-Ascii characters, and the handling of case sensitivity for Ascii characters. This will likely be resolved at the Geneva September meeting.

The second Internet Draft for the requested IRI "oid:" scheme will be produced as soon as these remaining issues in the ORS (OID Resolution System) are sorted.

John L

Tom Gindin wrote:
        John:

This draft is interesting and useful for some purposes, but I don't see how it addresses the case where a high-level arc (beyond the control of the development organization) is renamed. Since that's precisely the case we are discussing here (although the change took place quite a while ago and it's reasonable to expect people to adjust), it doesn't actually seem to help us. Am I missing something? Also, unless I have missed something, there are only three top-level arcs defined for OID's and they all now have names.

                Tom Gindin




John Larmouth <j(_dot_)larmouth(_at_)btinternet(_dot_)com> Sent by: owner-ietf-pkix(_at_)mail(_dot_)imc(_dot_)org
12/22/2008 10:48 AM
Please respond to
j(_dot_)larmouth(_at_)btinternet(_dot_)com


To
Alfred � <ah(_at_)tr-sys(_dot_)de>
cc
turners(_at_)ieca(_dot_)com, ietf-pkix(_at_)imc(_dot_)org, 
ietf-smime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject
Re: consisten use of top-level oid branch name joint-iso-itu-t(2)






Alfred,

The synonyms were introduced some time ago, and, indeed, the names are non-normative, and may not even be unambiguous. Only the numbers matter in an OID in an encoding.

However, the recent introduction of Unicode labels, as normative and unambigous names gives a new naming scheme to the (same) OID tree that enables names (Unicode labels) to be used in machine communication if desired. The ASN.1 type is called OID_IRI and provides for node identification using Unicode labels. Unicode labels with names similar to the old ASCII names have been assigned for many of the top-level arcs, and more will be added over time.

The OID_IRI type is related to (but not dependent on) the application for an "oid" IRI scheme, but for consistency this is desired. See I-D draft-larmouth-oid-iri-00.

John L

Alfred � wrote: Folks / to whom it concerns,

during recent reviews of active I-Ds containing ASN.1 related
to the X.500 framework, I found that a couple of these do not
consistently employ the revised name of the top-level OID branch

    joint-iso-itu-t(2) ,

but instead use the outdated/legacy name

    joint-iso-ccitt(2) .

Some drafts use a mix of both names.

I suggest that the modern version  joint-iso-itu-t(2)  be used
consistently within all new drafts / draft versions, unless
intentionally and explicitely for historical evidence reference
has to be made to the old name.

Kind regards,
  Alfred.


--
   Prof John Larmouth
   Larmouth T&PDS Ltd
   (Training and Protocol Design Services Ltd)
   1 Blueberry Road
   Bowdon                               
j(_dot_)larmouth(_at_)btinternet(_dot_)com
   Altrincham
   Cheshire
   WA14 3LS
   England
   Tel: +44 161 928 1605

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Re: consisten use of top-level oid branch name joint-iso-itu-t(2), John Larmouth <=