Subject: [precis] spaces in usernames

From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2012 15:05:34 -0700

Alexey and I are working on an I-D to replace SASLprep (RFC 4013). One
issue we found is that, in RFC 4013, spaces were allowed in usernames. I
know the framework document now allows spaces in passphrases, but I'm
wondering if we also want to allow spaces in usernames. Something to
discuss in Paris, perhaps...

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Alan DeKok <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2012 09:10:24 +0100

> discuss in Paris, perhaps...

  In a theoretical sense, yes.

  Practically, usernames are largely email addresses.  And I've rarely
seen spaces used in practice.

  Alan DeKok.

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:02:34 +0000

> seen spaces used in practice.
Spaces are allowed in email addresses, if quoted. Of course no sane 
person would pick an email address with spaces on the left hand side (as 
this is unlikely to work in many places), but at least SMTP allows for that.
(And then there are email addresses used for gatewaying from other 
systems like X.400. Such email addresses can also contain spaces)

I would be happy with discouraging spaces in usernames, but I don't 
think we can just prohibit them.

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From: Peter Saint-Andre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:12:36 -0700

> systems like X.400. Such email addresses can also contain spaces)

It's rather unlikely that X.400 will be made Unicode-aware, right? ;-)

> think we can just prohibit them.

I tend to agree.

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
https://stpeter.im/

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:27:28 +0000

> It's rather unlikely that X.400 will be made Unicode-aware, right? ;-)
Actually, you might be surprised. X.400 names are based on X.500 and the 
latter is very much in active development to this day. And X.500 even 
has support for SASL now ;-).