On Tue, 25 Jul 1995, Derek Atkins wrote:
I would comment that the DNS is the Internet's namespace. So
tim(_at_)frobble(_dot_)org
is syntactic sugar for tim.frobble.org. It is good syntactic sugar because
it suggests that the named entity is a person, and it is a lot nicer if
there is a dot in the name to write tim(_dot_)smith(_at_)frobble(_dot_)org
than
"tim.smith".frobble.org .
The official DNS way is tim\.smith.frobble.org.
I'm not sure that '@' is syntactic sugar for '.' since that causes
problems with users of the same name as subdomains. For example, I
can easily see a use named lcs in the mit.edu domain, which would
conflict with the lcs.mit.edu domain.
So, if '@' == '.', then lcs(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu -> lcs.mit.edu; how do you
differentiate the user from the domain?
This is why DNS Security has flags in the KEY RR specifying whether the
KEY is for the owner name as a user, a host, or a zone.
...
-derek
Donald
=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd +1 508-287-4877(tel) dee(_at_)cybercash(_dot_)com
318 Acton Street +1 508-371-7148(fax)
dee(_at_)world(_dot_)std(_dot_)com
Carlisle, MA 01741 USA +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)