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Consider a Mastodon/Fediverse handle, like @username@domain.example . What kinds of restrictions are there on "username"? Can I assume any valid unicode could go in there?

Evan Prodromou

@evan@cosocial.ca · 5 hours ago

@mcc unfortunately, it's very restrictive. It feels like a huge opportunity for us to reach the majority of people on the planet who use non-Latin characters for their names, but the network right now is mostly Latin.

https://www.w3.org/community/reports/socialcg/CG-FINAL-apwf-20240608/

ActivityPub and WebFinger

Identifiers in ActivityPub tend to be HTTPS URIs. The use of WebFinger (as defined in [RFC7033]) allows for discovery of an actor's identifier given a username and a hostname, which may be more socially salient or otherwise easier to communicate across various contexts and media. The username and hostname are resolved at the WebFinger endpoint of the hostname in order to discover a link to an actor associated with the user's account, and that actor similarly can be back-linked to the username and hostname.

Julian Fietkau

@julian@fietkau.social · 5 hours ago

@mcc In practice, it varies a lot. In theory, I have seen different people come to different conclusions based on the RFCs involved.

Evan Prodromou

@evan@cosocial.ca · 5 hours ago

@julian @mcc it's a good discussion!

mcc

@mcc@mastodon.social · 5 hours ago

Somebody linked me RFC 7565, which linked to RFC7564, and if that's the place to look this appears to be the list of disallowed characters in a Fediverse username, and I'm cracking up because it's *mostly* stuff you'd expect, except the very first category of banned characters, specially, is "pre-1700 Korean characters".

The fediverse is welcome to all. EXCEPT KOREAN TIME TRAVELERS. Did you just wake up from being frozen in ice during the Joseon dynasty? The IETF is targeting you PERSONALLY

4.2.3. Disallowed

o Old Hangul Jamo characters, i.e., the OldHangulJamo ("I") category
defined under Section 9.9.

o Control characters, i.e., the Controls ("L") category defined
under Section 9.12.

o Ignorable characters, i.e., the PrecisIgnorableProperties ("M")
category defined under Section 9.13.

o Space characters, i.e., the Spaces ("N") category defined under
Section 9.14.

o Symbol characters, i.e., the Symbols ("O") category defined under
Section 9.15.

o Punctuation characters, i.e., the Punctuation ("P") category
defined under Section 9.16.

o Any character that has a compatibility equivalent, i.e., the
HasCompat ("Q") category defined under Section 9.17. These code
points are disallowed even if they would otherwise be valid
according to the property-based rules specified in the previous
section.

o Letters and digits other than the "traditional" letters and digits
allowed in IDNs, i.e., the OtherLetterDigits ("R") category
defined under Section 9.18. — 4.2.3. Disallowed o Old Hangul Jamo characters, i.e., the OldHangulJamo ("I") category defined under Section 9.9. o Control characters, i.e., the Controls ("L") category defined under Section 9.12. o Ignorable characters, i.e., the PrecisIgnorableProperties ("M") category defined under Section 9.13. o Space characters, i.e., the Spaces ("N") category defined under Section 9.14. o Symbol characters, i.e., the Symbols ("O") category defined under Section 9.15. o Punctuation characters, i.e., the Punctuation ("P") category defined under Section 9.16. o Any character that has a compatibility equivalent, i.e., the HasCompat ("Q") category defined under Section 9.17. These code points are disallowed even if they would otherwise be valid according to the property-based rules specified in the previous section. o Letters and digits other than the "traditional" letters and digits allowed in IDNs, i.e., the OtherLetterDigits ("R") category defined under Section 9.18.

the Hearth :therian:

@Hearth@plush.city · 5 hours ago

@mcc ...is there any reasoning given for this?? and for the latter two, those seem weird too
-F

Athena L.M.

@alilly@solarpunk.moe · 4 hours ago

@mcc @Hearth @xgranade I'm guessing Q and R are disallowed to mitigate homoglyph attacks. Maybe Old Hangul too, which presumably contains some homoglyphs with modern Hangul.

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