Re: Case sensitivity on the LHS

["D. J. Bernstein" <djb@xxxxxxxx>]

tedd writes:
> making the LHS case-sensitive 

Mailbox names _are_ case-sensitive. Any message sender that tries to
convert mailbox names to lowercase will break interoperability.

> Thus, I believe that whatever method is adapted for character 
> consideration should be consistent throughout the address.

Sorry, but the IDNA proponents repeatedly refused to think beyond domain
names. They said that mailbox names (and login names and so on) were
``out of scope.''

The IDNA proponents also refused to take the conservative approach of
prohibiting uppercase---which allows uppercase to be safely added later
if it's necessary. They insisted on case-insensitivity---which becomes
an irrevocable decision if users start relying on uppercase addresses.

The IDNA proponents also didn't stop and think ``Gee, maybe we're doing
something wrong'' when they received public objections from more than
THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE. They simply went ahead and declared ``consensus.''

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago