BUG: GnuPG Key import fails to parse TLD email address

[Rich Wales]

Sean Hastings wrote:

    > My DH/DSS key was generated under PGP 5+ - when I send it to
    > someone using GnuPG, they can not import it to their key ring.
    > The reason for this appears to be that one of my email addresses
    > is "sean@ai". This does not break PGP but does appear to break
    > GnuPG which apparently objects to the lack of a "." in my email
    > address, even though it is a legitimate address that just happens
    > to be at a Top Level Domain.

I'm not sure if there's anything in the domain or e-mail RFC's that
explicitly, officially bans bare top-level domains in host names or
e-mail addresses, but the convention that single-word names are assumed
not to be fully qualified (and are therefore interpreted with reference
to the user's local domain) is so long-standing and ingrained (since
the very first days of the DNS) that just about everyone is going to
assume that "ai" is a local subdomain (e.g., an artificial intelligence
group in a CS department), and not the island nation of Anguilla.

Maybe GnuPG could/should be relaxed to accept imported keys whose
addresses don't conform to its own rules -- but no matter how small
Anguilla's computer user community is, I'd strongly suggest that Sean
(and others with addresses there) consider setting up a second-level
subdomain underneath "ai", just so everyone else in the world who might
try to contact you won't get snagged on this particular rough edge.

Rich Wales         richw@webcom.com         http://www.webcom.com/richw/