Steve,
Your forwarded message with Mr. Bork's email address does
point out the limitations of any naming scheme, but I think it
supports, rather than undermines, the observations that have been made
about the relative descriptiveness of DNS addresses vs. DNs.
First, you noted that it took some digging to find out that
FRB.GOV was the federal Reserve Board. With a good DN this would have
been obvious. Second, I note that "borkr" is the email address, but
Mr. Bork, appears to have felt that was not a very descriptive DNS
address, so he added his own expansion of it. Again, with a good DN,
the certified name would be more like the comment included with his
DNS address, not the DNS address itself.
Finally, yes, even with a reasonable DN, you can't tell if
this is the same Bork who was a Supreme Court nominee. It would be
reckless to assume that he was from this name, since the name would
only indicate that this Bork works for the Fed. I think it
unrealistic to expect any certified name to tell you everying about
the person, but this example also suggests that a well-formed DN would
have provided much more of the info that you either had to work to
find out or had to trust the commented form of the DNS address to
provide. The suggestion that one might jump to an unwarrented
conclusion based on knowing this information in a more assured
fashion, strikes me as a preety weak argument against DNs.
Steve