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 at 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 at webcom.com         http://www.webcom.com/richw/