[dns-operations] Google's name servers compressing names in SRV records

[Paul Vixie]

> Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:40:51 +0100
> From: James Raftery <james at now.ie>
> 
> > indeed, and also there's the robustness principle.  there's no harm in
> > being ready to decompress rdata's beyond what the RFC's suggest,
> > perhaps all rdatas.  it's just compressing them in the first place
> > that's "wrong."
> 
> But in RRs I've no special knowledge about how do I know that every 0xc0
> starts a domain name and isn't just some bits in a new, exotic blob of
> RDATA?

you don't.  that's why there's a requirement that new rrtypes not be
compressed.  but if you do know, and you see compression pointers, it's
not a flaw in your receiving logic if you decompress them.