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                Date: 2001-02-28
                 
                 
                Domains: gegen virtuelle Rotlichtviertel
                
                 
-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- 
                 
                
      Donald Eastlake 3rd und Declan McCullagh haben für die  
IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] basierend auf Sektion  
10 von RFC 2026 [Request for Comments] einen Entwurf  
verfasst. Damit soll als Quasi-Standard fest geschrieben  
werden, was TCP/IP, Domains und sogenannte "Adult Sites"   
betrifft, dass streng abgegrenzte, virtuelle Rotlichtviertel im  
Netz ein Blödsinn sind. 
    
-.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-   
[Donald Eastlake and I co-authored this IETF Internet Draft in  
advance of the March 18 meeting in Minneapolis. This is an  
inital draft, and comments are very welcome. You can also  
find the draft at: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-
                   
eastlake-xxx-00.txt --Declan] 
 
*********** 
 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT Donald Eastlake 3rd Motorola Declan  
McCullagh Wired News Expires: August 2001 February 2001 
 
 
 
.xxx Considered Dangerous ---- ---------- --------- <draft-eastlake- 
xxx-00.txt> 
 
 
 
Status of This Document 
 
Distribution of this draft is unlimited. Comments should be  
sent to the authors. 
 
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance  
with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026.  Internet-Drafts  
are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task  
Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that  
other groups may also distribute working documents as  
Internet-Drafts. 
 
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six  
months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other  
documents at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-  
Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as  
"work in progress." 
 
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at  
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt
                   
 
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed  
at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
 
 
 
Copyright Notice 
 
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights  
Reserved. 
 
 
 
Abstract 
 
Periodically there are proposals to require the use of a  
special top level name or an IP address bit to flag "adult" or  
"safe" material or the like.  This document explains why this  
is an ill considered idea. 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 1] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
Table of Contents 
 
Status of This Document....................................1 Copyright  
Notice...........................................1  
Abstract...................................................1 
 
Table of Contents..........................................2 
 
1. Background..............................................3 2. Legal and  
Philisophical Problems........................4 4. Technical  
Difficulties..................................6 4.1 Domain Name  
System (DNS) and Other Names...............7 4.1.1 Linguistic  
Problems..................................7 4.1.2 The DNS Hierarchy  
and Use of TLDs....................8 4.1.2 You Can't Control Who  
Points At You..................8 4.1.3 Particular Protocol  
Considerations...................9 4.1.3.1 Electronic Mail  
(SMTP).............................9 4.1.3.2 Web Access  
(HTTP).................................10 4.1.3.3 News  
(NNTP).......................................10 4.1.3.4 Internet Relay  
Chat...............................10 4.2 IP  
Addressing.........................................10 4.2.1 Hierarchical  
Routing................................11 4.2.2 IP Version 4  
Addresses..............................12 4.2.3 IP Version 6  
Addresses..............................12 4.3 PICS  
Labels...........................................13 5.  
Conclusions............................................13 
 
References................................................14 Authors  
Addresses.........................................15 
 
Full Copyright Statement..................................16  
Expiration and File Name..................................16 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 2] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
1. Background 
 
The concept of a .xxx, .sex, or similar top-level domain is  
periodically suggested by politicians and commentators.  
Other proposals have included a domain reserved exclusively  
for material viewed as appropriate for minors, or using IP  
address bits or ranges to segregate content. 
 
In an October 1998 report accompanying the Child Online  
Protection Act, the House Commerce committee said "there  
are no technical barriers to creating an adult domain, and it  
would be very easy to block all websites within an adult  
domain." The report also said that the committee was wary of  
regulating the computer industry and that any decision by the  
U.S. government "will have international consequences."  
[HOUSEREPORT] 
 
British Telecom has backed adult top-level domains, saying  
in a 1998 letter to the U .S. Department of Commerce that it  
"strongly supported" that plan. The reason: "Sexually explicit  
services could then be legally required to operate with  
domain names in this gTLD [that] would make it much  
simpler and easier to control access to such sites..." [BT]  
One of ICANN's progenitors, the GTLD-MOU committee,  
suggested a "red-light -zone" top-level domain in a  
September 1997 request for comment. [GTLD-MOU] 
 
Some adult industry executives have endorsed the concept.  
In 1998, Seth Warshavsky, president of the Internet  
Entertainment Group, told the U.S. Senate Commerce  
committee that he would like to see a .adult domain. "We're  
suggesting the creation of a new top-level domain called  
'.adult' where all sexually explicit material on the Net would  
reside," Warshavsky said in an interview at the time.  
[WARSHAVSKY] More recently, other entrepreneurs in the  
industry have said that they do not necessarily object to the  
creation of an adult domain as long as they may continue to  
use .com. 
 
Conservative groups in the U.S. say they are not eager for  
such a domain, and prefer criminal laws directed at  
publishers and distributors of sexually-explicit material.  The  
National Law Center for Children and Families in Fairfax,  
Virginia, said in February 2001 that it did not favor any such  
proposal. For different reasons, the American Civil Liberties  
Union and civil liberties groups also oppose it. 
 
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the U.S. Democratic Party's vice  
presidential nominee, endorsed the idea at a June 2000  
meeting of the federal Commission on Child Online  
Protection. Lieberman said in a prepared statement that "we  
would ask the arbiters of the Internet to simply abide by the  
same standard as the proprietor of an X-rated movie theater  
or the owner of a convenience store who sells sexually-  
explicit magazines." [LIEBERMAN] 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 3] 
 
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2001 
 
 
In the 1998 law creating this commission, the U.S. Congress  
required the members to investigate "the establishment of a  
domain name for posting of any material that is harmful to  
minors." The commission devoted a section of its October  
2000 report to that topic. It concluded that both a .xxx and a  
.kids domain are technically possible, but would require  
action by ICANN. The report said that an adult domain might  
be only "moderately effective" and raises privacy and free  
speech concerns. [COPAREPORT] 
 
The commission also explored the creation of a so-called red  
zone or green zone for content by means of allocation of a  
new set of IP addresses under IPv6. Any material not in one  
of those two zones would be viewed as in a grey zone and  
not necessarily appropriate or inappropriate for minors.  
Comments from commissioners were largely negative:  
"Effectiveness would require substantial effort to attach  
content to specific I P numbers. This approach could  
potentially reduce flexibility and impede optimal network  
performance. It would not be effective at blocking access to  
chat, newsgroups, or instant messaging." 
 
In October 2000, ICANN rejected a .xxx domain during its  
initial round of approving additional top-level domains. The  
reasons are not entirely clear, but former ICANN Chairwoman  
Esther Dyson said that the adult industry did not entirely  
agree that such a domain would be appropriate. One .xxx  
hopeful, ICM Registry of Ontario, Canada, in December 2000  
asked ICANN to reconsider its decision. [ICM-REGISTRY] 
 
 
 
2. Legal and Philisophical Problems 
 
When it comes to sexually-explicit material, every person,  
court, and government has a different view of what's  
acceptable and what is not. Attitudes change over time, and  
what is viewed as appropriate in one town may spark  
protests in the next. When faced with the slippery nature of  
what depictions of sexual activity should be illegal or not, one  
U.S. Supreme Court justice blithely defined obscenity as: "I  
know it when I see it." 
 
In the U.S., obscenity is defined as explicit sexual material  
that, among other things, violates "contemporary community  
standards" -- in other words, even at the national level, there  
is no agreed-upon rule governing what is illegal and what is  
not. Making matters more knotty is that there are over 200  
United Nations country codes, and in most of them political  
subdivisions can impose their own restrictions. Even for legal  
nude modeling, age restrictions differ. They're commonly 18  
years of age, but only 17 years of age in Sweden. A  
photographer in Oslo conducting what's viewed as a legal and  
proper photo shoot there likely would be branded a felon and  
child pornographer in the U.S. 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 4] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China are not likely to have the same  
liberal views as, say, the Netherlands. Saudi Arabia, like  
some other nations, filters its Internet connection and has  
created a government committee to protect its society from  
web sites that officials view as immoral. Their views on what  
should be included in a .xxx domain would hardly be identical  
to those in more liberal democracies. 
 
Those wildly different opinions on sexual material make it  
improbable a global consensus can ever be reached on what  
is appropriate or inappropriate for a .xxx or .adult top-level  
domain. Moreover, the existence of such a domain would  
create an irresistible temptation on the part of conservative  
legislators to require controversial publishers to move to that  
domain. 
 
Some conservative politicians already have complained that  
ICANN did not approve .xxx in its October 2000 meeting.  
During a February 2001 hearing in the U.S. House of  
Representatives, legislators warned that they "want to  
explore ICANN's rationale for not approving two particular top  
level domain names -- .kids and .xxx -- as a means to  
protect kids from the awful smut which is so widespread on  
the Internet." 
 
It seems plausible that only a few adult publishers, and not  
those who have invested resources in building a brand around  
a .com site, would voluntarily abandon their current domain  
name. Instead, they'd likely add a propel legislators in the  
U.S. and other countries to require them to publish  
exclusively from an adult domain, a move that would invite  
ongoing political interference with Internet governance and  
raise concerns about forced speech and self-labeling. 
 
In fact, the ultimate arbiter of generic top-level domain names  
-- at least currently -- is not ICANN, but the U.S. government.  
The U.S. Congress' General Accounting Office in July 2000  
reported that the Commerce Department continues to be  
responsible for domain names allowed by the authoritative  
root. [GAO] The GAO's auditors concluded it was unclear  
whether the Commerce Department has the "requisite  
authority" under current law to transfer that responsibility to  
ICANN. 
 
The American Civil Liberties Union -- and other members of  
the international Global Internet Liberty Campaign -- caution  
that publishers speaking frankly about birth control, AIDS  
prevention, and gay and lesbian sex could be coerced into  
moving to an adult domain. Once there, they would be  
stigmatized and easily blocked by schools, libraries,  
companies, and other groups using filtering software.  
Publishers of such information who do not view themselves  
as pornographers and retain their existing addresses could  
be targeted for prosecution. 
 
The existence of an adult top-level domain would likely open  
the door 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 5] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
for related efforts, either policy or legislative. There are many  
different axes through which offensive material can be  
defined: Sex, violence, hate, heresy, subversion, blasphemy,  
illegal drugs, profanity, political correctness, glorification of  
crime, incitement to break the law, and so on. Such  
suggestions invite the ongoing lobbying of ICANN, the U.S.  
government, or other policy-making bodies by special-interest  
groups that are not concerned with the technical feasibility or  
practicality of their advice. 
 
An adult top-level domain could have negative legal  
repercussions by endangering free expression. U.S.  
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has suggested  
that the presence of "adult zones" on the Internet would  
make a future Communications Decency Act (CDA) more  
likely to be viewed as constitutional. In her partial dissent to  
the Supreme Court's rejection of the CDA in 1997 [CDA],  
O'Connor said that "the prospects for the eventual zoning of  
the Internet appear promising." (The Supreme Court ruled the  
CDA violated free speech rights by making it a crime to  
distribute "indecent" or "patently offensive" material online.) 
 
Privacy could be harmed by such a proposal. It would  
become easier for repressive governments and other  
institutions to track visits to sites in a domain labeled as  
adult and record personally-identifiable information about the  
visitor. Repressive governments would instantly have more  
power to monitor naive users and prosecute them for their  
activities. It's also not clear how effective a top-level domain  
would be when controlling access to chat, email, newsgroups  
and instant messaging. 
 
 
 
4. Technical Difficulties 
 
Even ignoring the philosophical and legal difficulties outlined  
above, there are substantial technical difficulties in  
attempting to impose content classification by domain  
names or IP addresses. Mandatory content labeling is  
usually advanced with the idea of using a top level domain  
name, discussed in section 4.1 below, but we also discuss  
the more fundamental possibility of using IP address bits or  
ranges in section 4.2 below. 
 
In section 4.3 difficulties with a few particular higher level  
protocols are discussed.  In some cases, these protocols  
use different name spaces. 
 
We also discuss PICS labels [PICS] as an alternative  
technology in section 4.4. 
 
Only a limited technical background is assumed so some  
basic information is included below and in some cases  
descriptions are 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 6] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
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simplified. 
 
 
 
4.1 Domain Name System (DNS) and Other Names 
 
The most prominent user visible part of Internet naming and  
addressing is the domain name system [RFC 1034, 1035].   
Domain Names are dotted sequences of labels such as  
aol.com, world.std.com, www.rosslynchapel.org.uk, or  
ftp.gnu.lcs.mit.edu [RFC 1035, 1591, 2606].  They form an  
important part of most World Wide Web addresses or URLs  
[RFC 2396], commonly appearing right after "//". 
 
Actually, domain names just name nodes in a global  
distributed hierarchically delegated database.  A wide variety  
of information can be stored at these nodes including IP  
addresses of machines on the network (see section 4.2  
below), such things as mail delivery information, and many  
other types of information.  Thus, the data stored at  
foo.example.com could be the numeric information for  
sending data to a particular machine, which would be used if  
you tried to browse <http://foo.example.com>, the name of a  
computer (say mailhost.example.com) to handle mail  
addressed to anyone @foo.example.com, and other  
information. 
 
There are also other naming systems in use, such as news  
group names and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel names. 
 
The usual labeling idea presented is to reserve a top level  
name, such as .xxx for "adult" material and/or .kids for "safe"  
material or the like.  Ignoring the definitional and legal  
problems there are technical and linguistic problems with this  
are described in the subsections below. 
 
4.1.1 Linguistic Problems 
 
When using name labeling, the first problem is from whose  
language do you take the names to impose? Words and  
acronyms can have very different meanings if different  
languages and the probability of confusion is multiplied when  
phonetic collisions are considered. 
 
As an example of possible problems, note that currently the  
government of Turkmenistan has suspended new  
registrations in ".tm", which had previously been a source of  
revenue, because some of the registered second level  
domain names may have been "legally obscene in  
Turkmenistan".  <http://www.nic.tm> 
 
 
 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 7] 
 
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4.1.2 The DNS Hierarchy and Use of TLDs 
 
An important aspect of the design of the Domain Name  
System (DNS) is the hierarchical delegation of data  
maintenance.  The DNS really only works, and has been able  
to scale the five orders of magnitude it has grown since its  
initial deployment, only due to this delegation. 
 
The first minor problem is that one would expect most  
computers or web sites to have a mix of material only some  
of which should be specially classified.  Using special TLDs  
multiples the number of DNS zones the site has to worry  
about.  For example, assume the site has already sorted its  
material into "kids", "normal, and "adult" piles. Without  
special TLD labels, it can store them under  
kids.example.net, adult.example.net, and other.example.net,  
for instance, which requires only the maintenance of the  
single example.net zone of database entries.  With special  
TLD labeling, at least example.net (for normal stuff),  
example.net.xxx, and example.net.kids would need to be  
maintained which are three separate zones in different parts  
of the DNS tree.  As the number of categories expands and  
the number of category combinations explodes, this quickly  
becomes completely unmanageable. 
 
4.1.2 You Can't Control Who Points At You 
 
The DNS system works as a database and associates  
certain data, called resource records, or RRs, with domain  
names.  In particular, it can associate IP address resource  
records with domain names.  For example, when you browse  
a URL, most commonly the domain name within that URL is  
looked up in the DNS and the resulting address (see Section  
4.2) is used to address the packets sent from your web  
browser or other software to the server or peer. 
 
Remember what we said in Section 4.1.1 about hierarchical  
delegation? Anyone controlling a DNS zone of data, say  
example.com, can insert data at that name or any deeper  
name (except to the extent they maintain delegations of  
some of the deeper namespace to yet others). So the  
controller of example.com can insert data so that  
purity.example.com has stored at it the same computer  
address which is at www.obscene.example.xxx.  This directs  
any reference to purity.example.com to use the associated  
IP address which is the same as the  
www.obscene.example.xxx web site.  The manager of that  
hypothetical web site, who controls the example.xxx zone,  
has no control over the example.com DNS zone and so is  
technically incapable of causing it to conform to any "xxx"  
labeling law.  Or, in the alternative, someone could create a  
name conforming to an adult labeling requirement that  
actually pointed to someone else's entirely unobjectionable  
site, perhaps for the purpose of polluting the labeling. 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 8] 
 
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Thus, providers of data on the Internet cannot stop anyone  
from creating names pointing to their computer's IP address  
with misleading domain names. 
 
 
 
4.1.3 Particular Protocol Considerations 
 
There are additional considerations related to particular  
protocols. We consider only a few here.  The first two,  
electronic mail and the World Wide Web, use domain name  
addressing.  The second two, net news and IRC, actually use  
different name spaces and illustrate further technical  
problems with name based labeling. 
 
 
 
4.1.3.1 Electronic Mail (SMTP) 
 
The standard Internet electronic mail protocol separates  
"envelope" information from content [RFC 821, 822].  The  
envelope information indicates where a message claims to  
have originated and to whom it should be delivered.  The  
content has fields starting with labels like "From:" and "To:"  
but these actually have no effect and can be arbitrarily forged  
using simple normally available software, such a telnetting to  
the SMTP port on a mail server.  Content fields are not  
compared with envelope fields. 
 
While different mail client display envelope information and  
headers from the content of email differently, generally the  
more common content fields are given prominence.  Thus,  
while not exactly the same as content labeling, it should be  
noted that it is trivial to send mail to anyone with arbitrary  
domain names in the email addresses appearing in the From  
and To headers, etc. 
 
It is also easy set up a host to forward mail to a mailing list.  
Mail sent with normal mail tools to this forwarder will  
automatically have content headers reflecting the forwarder's  
name but the forwarder will change the envelope information  
and cause the mail to be actually sent to the original list.   
For example, (with names disguised) there is a social mailing  
list innocuous@foo.example.org and someone set up a  
forwarder at cat-torturers@other.example.  Mail sent to the  
forwarder is forwarded and appears on the innocuous mailing  
list but with a "To: cat-torturers@other.example" header in its  
body.  In some cases, similar things can be done using the  
"bcc" or blind courtesy copy feature of Internet mail. 
 
Thus, standard Internet tools provide no way to control  
domain names appearing inside email headers. 
 
There is work proceeding on securing email; however, such  
efforts at 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 9] 
 
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present only allow you to verify whether or not a particular  
entity was the actual author of the mail.  They do not  
generally relate to controlling or authenticating domain  
names in the content of the mail. 
 
 
 
4.1.3.2 Web Access (HTTP) 
 
At least with modern web servers and browsers supporting  
HTTP 1.1 [RFC 2616], the domain name used to access the  
site is available to access different web sites even though  
they are on the same machine at the same IP address. 
 
(more to come) 
 
 
 
4.1.3.3 News (NNTP) 
 
Net news uses hierarchical structured newsgroup names that  
are similar in appearance to domain names except that the  
most significant label is on the left and the least on the right,  
the opposite of domain names.  However, while the names  
are structured hierarchically, there is no central control.   
Instead, news servers periodically connect to other news  
servers that have agreed to exchange messages with them  
and then they update each other on messages only in those  
newsgroups in which they wish to exchange messages. 
 
(more to come) 
 
 
 
4.1.3.4 Internet Relay Chat 
 
Internet Relay Chat is another example of a service which  
uses a different name space.  (more to come) 
 
 
 
4.2 IP Addressing 
 
A key characteristic of the Internet Protocol (IP) on which the  
Internet is based is that it breaks data up into "packets".   
These packets are individually handled and routed from  
source to destination.  Each packet has in it a numeric  
address for the destination point to which the Internet will try  
to deliver the packet. 
 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 10] 
 
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(End users do not normally see these numeric addresses but  
instead deal with "domain names" as described in section  
4.1 above.) 
 
The numeric address system now primarily in use is called  
IPv4, or Internet Protocol Version 4, which provides for 32 bit  
addresses. There is a move to migrate to IPv6, which  
provides for 128 bit addresses. 
 
One problem in using addressing for content filtering is that  
this is a very coarse technique.  IP addresses address  
network interfaces which usually correspond to entire  
computer systems which could house multiple web pages,  
sets of files, etc., only a small part of which it was desired to  
block or enable.  Increasingly, a single IP address may  
correspond to a NAT (Network Address Translation) box  
[NAT] which hides multiple computers behind it, although in  
that case these computers are usually not servers. 
 
However, even beyond this problem of coarse granularity, the  
practical constraints of hierarchical routing make the  
allocation of even a single IPv4 address bit or any significant  
number of IPv6 address bits impossible. 
 
 
 
4.2.1 Hierarchical Routing 
 
As packets of data flow through the Internet, decisions must  
be made as to how to forward them "towards" their  
destination.  This is normally done by comparing the initial  
bits of the packet destination address to entries in a "routing  
table" and forwarding the packets as indicated by the table  
entry with the longest prefix match. 
 
While the Internet is actually a general mesh, if, for  
simplicity, we consider it to have a central backbone at the  
"top", a packet is typically routed as follows: 
 
The local networking code looks at its routing table to  
determine if the packet should be sent directly to another  
computer on the "local" network, to a router to specially  
forward it to another nearby network, or routed "up" to a  
"default" router to forward it to a higher level service provider's  
network.  If the packet's destination is "far enough away" it  
will eventually get forwarded up to a router on the backbone.   
Such a router can not sent the packet "up" since it is at the  
top or "default free" zone and must have a complete table of  
what other top level router to send the packet to.  Currently,  
such top level routers are very large and expensive devices.  
They must be able to maintain tables of tens of thousands of  
routes.  When the packet gets to the top level router of the  
part of the network within which its destination lies, it get  
forwarded "down" to successive routers which are more and  
more specific and local until 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 11] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
eventually its gets to a router on the local network where its  
destination address lies.  This local router sends the packet  
directly to the destination computer. 
 
Because all of these routing decisions are made on a longest  
prefix match basis, it can be seen that IP addresses are not  
general names or labels but are intimately associated with  
the actual topology and routing structure of the network.  If  
there were assigned at random, routers would be required to  
remember so many specific routes for specific addresses  
that it would exceed the current technical capabilities for  
router design. 
 
It should also be noted that there is some inefficiency in  
allocation at each level of hierarchy.  Generally allocations  
are of a power of two addresses and as requirements grow  
and/or shrink, it is not practical to use every address for a  
computer. 
 
(The above simplified description ignores multi-homing and  
many other details.) 
 
 
 
4.2.2 IP Version 4 Addresses 
 
There just isn't any practical way to reallocate even one bit of  
IPv4 global Internet Addresses for content filtering use.  Such  
addresses are in short supply and such an allocation would,  
in effect, cut the number of available addresses in half.  There  
just aren't enough addresses, given the efficiency of  
hierarchical allocation and routing, to do this.  Even if there  
were, current numbers have not be allocated with this in mind  
so that a renumbering within every organization with hosts on  
the Internet would be required, a nightmarish and Herculean  
task costing in the billions of dollars. Even if these problems  
were overcome, the allocation of even a single bit would likely  
double the number of routes in the default free zone,  
exceeding the capacity of current routers and requiring the  
upgrade of thousands of them to new routers that do not  
exist yet. 
 
And all this is for only a single bit, let alone more than one, is  
allocated to content labeling. 
 
Basically, the idea is a non-starter. 
 
 
 
4.2.3 IP Version 6 Addresses 
 
IPv6 provides 128 bit address fields.  (more to come) 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 12] 
 
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4.3 PICS Labels 
 
PICS Labels [PICS] have several modes.  If content is  
required to have labels in it, it raises all the problems of  
categorization granularity and forced speech.  But if used in a  
mode whereby a third party determines and provides labels  
for content and users are free to select whatever such third  
party or parties they wish to consult, it is a way to permit a  
myriad of categories, editors, and evaluators to exist in  
parallel. 
 
(more to come) 
 
 
 
5. Conclusions 
 
TBD 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 13] 
 
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2001 
 
 
References 
 
[BT] - British Telecom comments to U.S. Commerce  
Department, February 20, 1998,  
<http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/130dftmail/B
                   
T.htm> 
 
[CDA] - Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 117 S.Ct.  
2329, June 26, 1997,  
<http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96- 511.cpanel.html> 
 
[COPAREPORT] - Final Report of the COPA Commission to  
the U.S. Congress, October 20, 2000,  
<http://www.copacommission.org/report/newtopleveldomain.s
                   
html> 
 
[GAO] - GAO Report OGC-00-33R, July 7, 2000,  
<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/og00033r.pdf> 
 
[GTLD-MOU] - GTLD-MOU Policy Oversight committee RFC  
97-02, September 13, 1997, <http://www.gtld-
                   
mou.org/docs/notice-97-02.html> 
 
[HOUSEREPORT] - U.S. House Commerce Committee  
report, 105th Congress, October 5, 1998.  
<http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/hr3783-
                   
report.html> 
 
[ICM-REGISTRY] - Request for reconsideration from ICM  
Registry to ICANN, December 15, 2000,  
<http://www.icann.org/committees/reconsideration/icm-
                   
request- 16dec00.htm> 
 
[LIEBERMAN] - Testimony of Senator Joe Lieberman before  
Children's Online Protection Act Commission, June 8, 2000,  
<http://www.senate.gov/~lieberman/press/00/06/2000608958  
.html> 
 
[NAT] - ... 
 
[PICS] - Platform for Internet Content Selection Service  
Descriptions <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-PICS-services>  
Label Format and Distribution <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
                   
PICS- labels> PICS Rules <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-
                   
PICSRules> PICS Signed Labels (DSIG) 1.0 Specification  
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DSig-label/> 
 
[RFC 791] - "Internet Protocol", J. Postel, September 1981. 
 
[RFC 821] - "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", J. Postel, Aug- 
01-1982. 
 
[RFC 822] - "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text  
messages", D.  Crocker, Aug-13-1982. 
 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 14] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
[RFC 1034] - P. Mockapetris, "Domain Names - Concepts  
and Facilities", STD 13, November 1987. 
 
[RFC 1035] - P. Mockapetris, "Domain Names -  
Implementation and Specifications", STD 13, November 1987. 
 
[RFC 1591] - J. Postel, "Domain Name System Structure  
and Delegation", March 1994. 
 
[RFC 2396] - T.  Berners-Lee, R. Fielding, L. Masinter,  
"Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", August  
1998. 
 
[RFC 2460] - "Internet Protocol, Version 6 (IPv6)  
Specification", Deering, S. and R. Hinden, December 1998. 
 
[RFC 2606] - D. Eastlake, A. Panitz, "Reserved Top Level  
DNS Names", June 1999. 
 
[RFC 2616] - "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", R.  
Fielding, J. Gettys, J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, L. Masinter, P.  
Leach, T. Berners- Lee, June 1999. 
 
[WARSHAVSKY] - "Congress weighs Net porn bills," CNET  
article, February 10, 1998, <http://news.cnet.com/news/0-
                   
1005-200-326435.html> 
 
 
 
 
 
 
D. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 15] 
 
INTERNET-DRAFT .xxx Considered Dangerous February  
2001 
 
 
Full Copyright Statement 
 
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2001).  All Rights  
Reserved. 
 
This document and translations of it may be copied and  
furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or  
otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be  
prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in  
part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above  
copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such  
copies and derivative works.  However, this document itself  
may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the  
copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other  
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of  
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures  
for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must  
be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other  
than English. 
 
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will  
not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or  
assigns. 
 
This document and the information contained herein is  
provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY  
AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE  
DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,  
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT  
THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT  
INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES  
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR  
PURPOSE. 
 
 
 
 
Expiration and File Name 
 
This draft expires August 2001. 
 
Its file name is draft-eastlake-xxx-00.txt. 
 
. Eastlake 3rd, D. McCullagh [Page 16] 
 
 
 
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edited by Harkank 
published on: 2001-02-28 
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