At 10:07 18-09-2008, The IESG wrote:
= = = = = = Text of Proposed IESG Statement = = = = = = =
IESG Statement on the Usage of Assignable Codepoints in Specification
Examples
Protocol specifications and other documents intended for RFC publication
often include useful examples with correctly formatted and syntactically
valid codepoints. Example codepoints may be names, addresses or assigned
numbers, such as email addresses, domain names, IP addresses or ports. The
value used in an example may already have been assigned or may become
assigned in the future to entities on the Internet, and this can cause
problems.
Codepoints used in specification examples can result (and have in the
past resulted) in some amount of unwanted traffic. The impact of this
unwanted traffic varies highly depending on the context and nature of the
example. Some examples of causing unwanted traffic include:
1) Spam: apparently valid email addresses in an RFC are widely believed
to have been harvested and included in Spam lists. The domain may receive
spam at mailboxes other than the one used in the example email address, if
the domain name is used in common name or brute force attacks.
Given that the IESG states that the use of valid email addresses
causes unwanted traffic, will the IESG prohibit the use of valid
email addresses in RFCs?
Use of examples in RFCs is not a new concern. The issues have been known
and considered for several types of codepoints. BCP 32 (RFC 2606 -
Reserved Top Level DNS Names) reserved some domain names for use in
examples. RFC 3330 (Special-Use IPv4 Addresses) and RFC 5156 (Special-Use
IPv6 Addresses) assigned some IP address ranges specially for examples and
documentation. RFC4735 (Example Media Types for Use in Documentation)
registered one example media type and one subtype under each of the
registered media types for example use. Other similar specifications and
reserved codepoints exist.
The IESG understands that not all types of codepoints have reserved
values or ranges for documentation and examples. The IESG also understands
that sometimes the use of reserved values makes examples harder to read or
less apt. In these cases authors have several options:
- The specification itself can request further values or codepoints to
be assigned.
- The author can get permission from the holders of assigned values.
However, the stability of the assignment needs to be considered.
Will authors have to seek the permission from the holders, in the
case of domain names (e.g. www.w3.org), before using such domains in RFCs?
Regards,
-sm
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