April 2016 - UA-discuss - lists.iana.org

Updates to the UA Wiki Page uasg.tech
by Don Hollander Nov. 15, 2016

Nov. 15, 2016

Dear all: There have been some updates to the UA Wiki page over the past couple of days: In the Documents tab, we have added: UASG005 - Quick Guides in Chinese, Arabic and Russian UASG009 - Quick Guide to Tender and Contractual Documents At the bottom of this same page we have also added a Registry of Interests for those in the Coordination Group - so that there is transparency of potential vested interests when we contract out work. Don

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Contacts at...
by Don Hollander June 23, 2016

June 23, 2016

G’day all… I’m hoping that you can help. I'm currently looking for the following contacts: - Yahoo - Someone who is familiar with their e-mail platform and plans for EAI - Adobe - Someone within their Flash Development Team - Mozilla - Someone within their Firefox team who’s working on Flash implementations - Twitter - Someone who is familiar with how they handle Linkifications If you are such a person, or you personally know such a person - or even know someone who will know someone (3 degrees of separation) - can you please let me know off the list? Thanks. Don don.hollander(a)icann.org

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Fwd: [DENICpublic-l] Thunderbird 45 Now Also IDNA-Compatible Due To DENIC Source Code Donation
by Frank Michlick May 4, 2016

May 4, 2016

All it takes is a donation... FYI. -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: [DENICpublic-l] Thunderbird 45 Now Also IDNA-Compatible Due To DENIC Source Code Donation Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 09:25:49 +0200 From: DENIC Presse <presse(a)denic.de> To: Public-l(a)denic.de Dear Sir or Madam, DENIC has contributed part of the code for the new version 45 of the free e-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird (https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/) which was launched in mid-April 2016: Thanks to this donation to the open-source community, Thunderbird now for the first time supports, besides numerous other novel functions, certain special characters (Internationalized Domain Names, IDNs) such as the German letter "Eszett" (Ã) in e-mail addresses. Up to now, if the domain part of an e-mail address (i.e. the part after the [at] sign) contained the letter "Ã", this letter has been converted automatically to the character string "ss", despite mail programs having been able to handle this special character since August 2010 in theory. At that time, the Internet Standard for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA2008) had been adapted correspondingly by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). DENIC, too, had included the "Eszett" more than five years ago in the set of characters permitted for .de domains already. However, to date the practicality of this had been limited due to the lack of support by web browsers and e-mail applications. The DENIC-coded novelty in Thunderbird 45 is also of benefit to the users of other language families which are not based on Latin characters: In fact it paved the way for the entire range of characters under IDNA2008 to be fully available in Thunderbird starting as of now. Additionally, various characters from Greek, Farsi and Sinhala, for which re-routing has taken place so far, are now able to be resolved as characters in domains in their own right. Overall, the IDNA2008 standard, which is based on the Unicode character set, allows the coding of thousands of new characters from various script systems. As a result, tens of thousands of characters from a multitude of different script systems may be used actively in Internet browsers and e-mail applications, provided that the required client support is available. On DENICâs website, we provide a list of programs that are currently IDNA-capable (https://www.denic.de/en/know-how/idn-domains/idn-capable-software/) */Donated IDNA Source Code Earlier Implemented in Firefox 45 Already/* Already since the start of March, the latest version of the Mozilla browser Firefox (Firefox 45) has been using the IDNA source code donated by DENIC (https://www.denic.de/en/whats-new/news/article/denic-contributes-source-cod…) and thus enables Internet users to access domains that contain certain special characters such as the German letter "Eszett" (Ã). For the time being, the new code cannot yet be used in the Firefox application for Android. This is due to the particularities of the Google platform. A very prompt reaction to the launch of the IDNA standard came at that time from the developers of the Libidn2 library, which serves to code and decode internationalized domain names: They implemented the revised algorithm of the IDNA standard on the basis of a corresponding source code donation by DENIC as early as in 2011. Kind regards Stefanie Welters Public Relations -- DENIC eG, KaiserstraÃe 75 - 77, 60329 Frankfurt am Main, GERMANY E-Mail: presse(a)denic.de, Fon: +49 69 27235-274, Fax: -235 https://www.denic.de <https://www.denic.de/> Angaben nach Â§ 25a Absatz 1 GenG: DENIC eG (Sitz: Frankfurt am Main) Vorstand: Helga KrÃ¼ger, Andreas Musielak, Carsten Schiefner, Dr. JÃ¶rg Schweiger Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: Thomas Keller Eingetragen unter Nr. 770 im Genossenschaftsregister, Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main

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DRAFT: Quick Guide to Linkification
by Don Hollander April 28, 2016

April 28, 2016

As part of our growing Quick Guide series, here’s a draft document for Linkification. It’s here embedded, as a PDF and with a link to an editable version. DRAFT::DRAFT::DRAFT::DRAFT:: Universal Acceptance Steering Group Quick Guide to Linkification 27 April 2016 Background Universal Acceptance (UA) is the state where all valid domain names and email addresses are accepted, validated, stored, processed and displayed correctly and consistently by all Internet- enabled applications, devices and systems. Due to the rapidly changing domain name landscape, many systems do not recognize or appropriately process new domain names, primarily because they may be more than three characters in length or in a non-ASCII format. The same is true for email addresses that incorporate these new extensions. The Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG), supported by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), is a community-led, Internet industry-wide initiative working on creating awareness and identifying and resolving problems associated with the universal acceptance of domain names. The purpose of these efforts is to help ensure a consistent and positive experience for Internet users globally. For more information on the UASG and recent development, visit www.uasg.tech<http://www.uasg.tech>. Linkification Modern software sometimes allows a user to automatically create a hyperlink simply by typing in a string that looks like a web address, email name or network path. For example, typing “www.icann.org<http://www.icann.org>” into an email message may result in a clickable link to http://icann.org being automatically created if the application treats “www.” as a special prefix or “.org” as a special suffix. Linkification is the action where an application accepts a string and dynamically determines whether it should create a hyperlink to an Internet Location (URL) or an email address (mailto:) Linkification should work consistently for all well-formed web addresses, email names or network paths. Linkification uses algorithms and rules created by software developers to determine whether a string should be deemed a link – or not. Related to this is how people can identify a string as a domain name. While browsers, email clients and word processors are obvious places, there are many more applications that make these decisions.   Good Practice Recommendations 1. Attempt to linkify based on explicit protocol prefixes (e.g. “http://”, ftp://”, “mailto:”) but only complete the action if the rest of the string is well formed Example String Expected Behavior/ Result example.com<http://example.com> No linkification because protocol is absent and not inferred. http://example.com Create hyperlink because protocol is explicit http:example.com No linkification because of bad syntax (missing //) http://example.a No linkification because of bad syntax (TLD must be at least two characters) http://example..ab No linkification because of bad syntax (consecutive dots) http:// 普遍接受-测试.世界 Create hyperlink because protocol is explicit. 2. Attempt to linkify based on implicit protocol prefixes (e.g. “www” infers “http://www”) Example String Expected Behavior/ Result www.example.com<http://www.example.com> Create hyperlink because protocol is implied[1] label(a)example.com<mailto:label@example.com> Create mailto: label(a)example.com<mailto:label@example.com> because protocol is implied. 3. Map the Ideographic Full Stop “。” (U+3002) to Full Stop “.” (U+002E) (e.g. http://田中<http://xn--fiqx46g>。com à http://田中.com<http://xn--fiqx46g.com>) if string is otherwise well formed. 4. If TLDs are used as a ‘special suffix’ to determine linkability, then all TLDs must be included. A list of valid TLDs should be updated dynamically on a frequent basis. ________________________________ [1] Note: it might be the case that the actual website requires that end users type https:// instead of http://. If this is the case, then the hyperlink may not resolve or may return an error page.

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Wanted: Some thoughts on measuring EAI
by Don Hollander April 28, 2016

April 28, 2016

One of the things I would like to do is measure the extent of EAI deployment today (which is included in this year’s business plan and budget) and for each of the next few years. I’d also like to get a measure of how different client and server applications are able to handle both EAI and IDNs, with ‘handle' being the ability to ACCEPT and DISPLAY the different permutations we’ve got in our UA Use Cases. I think that there should be some automatable way of testing servers – perhaps sending an SMTPUTF8 Request and measuring the response. But how do we identify the servers to query? Is there a list somewhere? Do we leverage the work of the Anti-Virus and Spam monitors? Could we automate the client software evaluation or will this require an install and manual exercise and evaluation? So, before we issue a Help Wanted request for email evaluation I would appreciate your thoughts on how we might do this evaluation. Thanks in advance. Don

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AUTO: Ahmed Bakhat Masood is out of the office. (returning 04/29/2016)
by Ahmed Bakhat Masood April 28, 2016

April 28, 2016

I am out of the office until 04/29/2016. I will not be able to respond to your mail. For urgent queries, please contact Mr. Shageel Ahmed Dy Director (ICT) at shargeel(a)pta.gov.pk or Mr. Anwar Zeb IT Officer at anwar(a)pta.gov.pk Note: This is an automated response to your message "UA-discuss Digest, Vol 16, Issue 17" sent on 04/28/2016 5:00:10 PM. This is the only notification you will receive while this person is away.

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UA Videos
by Don Hollander April 28, 2016

April 28, 2016

During the Edelman/UASG Engagement call earlier today, one of the things that we discussed was how to clearly communicate the imperative for Universal Acceptance work by application owners. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39MbIb2PlS4 This Chicken Egg video produced from Thailand was used as an example, but we know that there are many others. Toward that end, if you are aware of other videos, and the language isn’t so important, would you please share them with me? We’ll create a repository on the website. Thanks. Don

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Recording of UASG Engagement with Edelman 27 April 2016
by Michelle DeSmyter April 27, 2016

April 27, 2016

Dear All, If you are interested in listening to the recording of the UASG Engagement with Edelman call that was held today Wednesday, 27 April at 20:00 UTC, you may do so by clicking on the AC recording links that have been provided below. Part One of call: https://icann.adobeconnect.com/p2lzqh33mky/ <https://icann.adobeconnect.com/p2lzqh33mky/> Part Two of call: https://icann.adobeconnect.com/p3nke7ale28/ Part Three of call: https://icann.adobeconnect.com/p60a9ag7h93/ Kind regards, Michelle DeSmyter

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Re: [UA-discuss] New Project Group - EAI
by Don Hollander April 26, 2016

April 26, 2016

Further to this note, I’m delighted to advise that Mark Svancarek (Microsoft) and Jiankang Yao (CNNIC) have agreed to be co-Coordinators of the EAI Project Group. Don From: <ua-discuss-bounces(a)icann.org> on behalf of Don Hollander <don.hollander(a)icann.org> Date: Thursday, 14 April 2016 at 6:36 AM To: "UA-discuss(a)icann.org" <UA-discuss(a)icann.org> Subject: [UA-discuss] New Project Group - EAI Dear all: At it’s last call, the UASG Coordination Group decided to create a new Project Group dedicated to EAI. The focus of the group and its expected membership is developers and operators of EAI compliant email environments - either in existence or being planned. This will include software developers for Client and Server Side as well as operators. Toward that end, we would welcome nominations or volunteers to a) become active participants and b) become a Project Coordinator or co-Coordinator. If your interested in either role, would you please send me a note off-list by our usual close off time of UTC 23:00 on 25 April, 2016 (Anzac day for those from NZ, Australia or WW I history buffs). Thanks. Don

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DRAFT: Help Wanted… IDN, Unicode, Network Protocols and IETF engagement skills wanted
by Don Hollander April 25, 2016

April 25, 2016

There is an underlying issue with the way that IDNA (and other) and Unicode Protocols interact. The UASG is looking to support getting this addressed. Please find attached a draft Help Wanted ad to find someone who understands the issues and can address it. An editable version of this is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KM_ax-2hh93x-pkF0x9sVYU6T4Ov9T4moCfjFIc… Please note that this Help Wanted note is still a draft and we would very much appreciate help in refining it, if that is necessary. Can I please have your comments and adjustments by the end of the April? And, if you know someone who might fit this role, would you please let them know that such a request is coming. Thanks very much. Don

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