[dns-operations] [DNSOP] hong kong workshop, day 2, live link

[Joe Abley]

> On 9 Dec 2014, at 12:42, Randy Bush <randy at psg.com> wrote:
> 
>>> this is an amusing list.  i can understand EXAMPLE, LOCALHOST, and TEST.
>>> maybe even WHOIS and WWW.  but the rest sure look as if lawyers wanted
>>> and got what is in effect a super trademark.
>> 
>> Its also missing one thats actually really important to be reserved:
>> .onion.
> 
> very much agree

That one was proposed in the IETF, and sunk in a muddy no-mans-land between the IAB and ICANN of "who defines technical policy? and what the hell is technical policy anyway?".

For a green-fields namespace, given the prevalence of the DNS and the quantitative certainty that queries for other naming systems will leak to the DNS (and leak often), I think it's reasonable advice to suggest not using .ONION and instead use something that is a registered, unique name in the DNS (e.g. ONION.TLD). But that's of little interest to people who have running code depending on an existing namespace that wasn't designed with that in mind.

I think it's fair to say that an application for the ONION TLD in the DNS would fail on technical grounds of disruption to deployed systems though, and the ICANN process accommodates that. I don't think we will ever see HOME or CORP delegated either.


Joe