4 ms·

Eh, not really. It's all a mistake how we interpret domain names. From https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 3.6.1 ,

by pierat 3y ago

Eh, not really. It's all a mistake how we *interpret* domain names. From https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 3.6.1 , we see ---------------------- For example, we might show the RRs carried in a message as: ISI.EDU. MX 10 VENERA.ISI.EDU. MX 10 VAXA.ISI.EDU. VENERA.ISI.EDU. A 128.9.0.32 A 10.1.0.52 VAXA.ISI.EDU. A 10.2.0.27 A 128.9.0.33 ---------------------- Notice it's not ISI.EDU , but it's ISI.EDU. for an absolute fully-qualified domain name. You can also notice weirdnesses here when you go to https://news.ycombinator.com https://news.ycombinator.com. (copy and paste with period), like you're not logged in due to cookies not sharing. But requiring absolute FQDN's would solve this https://financialstatement.zip https://financialstatement.zip -> https://financialstatement.zip https://financialstatement.zip. and remove the ambiguity.

8organicbits 3y ago
That's pedantic. We're not going to teach the world to include the root '.'
- pierat 3y ago
  Its absolutely not pedantic, when you consider that TLDs of any language can be a thing. Its really nice to see a foreign language TLD, and know how to separate them appropriately. The "." at the end also serves another level of defense. When you provide a URL without a . at the end, I can append .someotherdomain.com. and redirect traffic. And I've seen that in the wild before. And the difference between "pedantic" and "technically correct" is how you get hacked. But feel free to throw insults. I know one of us is right, and it aint you.
  - kortex 3y ago
    And the difference between "technically correct" and "how things actually work in practice" is what keeps the world turning in the face of slight mismatches. See for example the URI/URL naming war. "URL" is a valid term for URI-like identifiers, even if they aren't locators. No one (within a rounding error of 0%) will change how they enter, use, or program systems to work with, URLs to use the FQDN. The incompatibility nightmare it would cause would be insurmountable.
  - manuelmoreale 3y ago
    I mean, you might be technically correct. I say might because I have no expertise on the matter so I can’t really comment on it. But literally the entire world is using domain names without the final . So I don’t think pointing out the technicality of how a domain name is supposed to be represented really helps in this context.
  - 8organicbits 3y ago
    Apologies if the term 'pedantic' felt like an insult. It was not intended as one.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    But you're not even technically correct when you claim "Eh, not really. It's all a mistake how we interpret domain names."... This document clearly says that the dotless form is perfectly acceptable and even expected. Take for example this snippet: Relative names are either taken relative to a well known origin, or to a list of domains used as a search list. Relative names appear mostly at the user interface, where their interpretation varies from implementation to implementation, and in master files, where they are relative to a single origin domain name. The most common interpretation uses the root "." as either the single origin or as one of the members of the search list, so a multi-label relative name is often one where the trailing dot has been omitted to save typing. Which says that relative names are meant to be used in user interface (ie by humans) and the most common interpretation of a dotless name is to be in the global/root namespace. So yes, the dotless notation comes down to own we interpret domain names. However that interpretation is not a mistake, it is expected.
  - 8organicbits 3y ago
    Can you clarify what system would allow "DOT evil DOT com" to be appended to "good DOT com" but not "evil DOT com" to be appended to "good DOT com DOT"? I'm not familiar with the latter.
    - brewmarche 3y ago
      Not the original poster, but I think they talked about DNS search suffix lists. Often seen in company networks where host foo.internal.example.org might be reachable via foo because internal.example.org is the search suffix. That will not happen with `foo.`
malfist 3y ago
Granny ain't gonna know that
notfed 3y ago
Putting a period at the end seems like a very ineffective way to disambiguate a name. How do you do this at the end of a sentence?

Eh, not really. It's all a mistake how we *interpret* domain names. From https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034 3.6.1 ,

by pierat 3y ago

8organicbits 3y ago

That's pedantic. We're not going to teach the world to include the root '.'

pierat 3y ago
Its absolutely not pedantic, when you consider that TLDs of any language can be a thing. Its really nice to see a foreign language TLD, and know how to separate them appropriately. The "." at the end also serves another level of defense. When you provide a URL without a . at the end, I can append .someotherdomain.com. and redirect traffic. And I've seen that in the wild before. And the difference between "pedantic" and "technically correct" is how you get hacked. But feel free to throw insults. I know one of us is right, and it aint you.
- kortex 3y ago
  And the difference between "technically correct" and "how things actually work in practice" is what keeps the world turning in the face of slight mismatches. See for example the URI/URL naming war. "URL" is a valid term for URI-like identifiers, even if they aren't locators. No one (within a rounding error of 0%) will change how they enter, use, or program systems to work with, URLs to use the FQDN. The incompatibility nightmare it would cause would be insurmountable.
- manuelmoreale 3y ago
  I mean, you might be technically correct. I say might because I have no expertise on the matter so I can’t really comment on it. But literally the entire world is using domain names without the final . So I don’t think pointing out the technicality of how a domain name is supposed to be represented really helps in this context.
- 8organicbits 3y ago
  Apologies if the term 'pedantic' felt like an insult. It was not intended as one.
- tredre3 3y ago
  But you're not even technically correct when you claim "Eh, not really. It's all a mistake how we interpret domain names."... This document clearly says that the dotless form is perfectly acceptable and even expected. Take for example this snippet: Relative names are either taken relative to a well known origin, or to a list of domains used as a search list. Relative names appear mostly at the user interface, where their interpretation varies from implementation to implementation, and in master files, where they are relative to a single origin domain name. The most common interpretation uses the root "." as either the single origin or as one of the members of the search list, so a multi-label relative name is often one where the trailing dot has been omitted to save typing. Which says that relative names are meant to be used in user interface (ie by humans) and the most common interpretation of a dotless name is to be in the global/root namespace. So yes, the dotless notation comes down to own we interpret domain names. However that interpretation is not a mistake, it is expected.
- 8organicbits 3y ago
  Can you clarify what system would allow "DOT evil DOT com" to be appended to "good DOT com" but not "evil DOT com" to be appended to "good DOT com DOT"? I'm not familiar with the latter.
  - brewmarche 3y ago
    Not the original poster, but I think they talked about DNS search suffix lists. Often seen in company networks where host foo.internal.example.org might be reachable via foo because internal.example.org is the search suffix. That will not happen with `foo.`

malfist 3y ago

Granny ain't gonna know that

notfed 3y ago

Putting a period at the end seems like a very ineffective way to disambiguate a name. How do you do this at the end of a sentence?