being valid.

   Last, this document intentionally does not address the problem of
   name resolution, other than to recommend that for each naming
   authority a name translation mechanism exist.  Naming authorities
   assign names, while resolvers or location services of some sort
   assist or provide URN to URL mapping.  There may be one or many such
   services for the resources named by a particular naming authority.
   It may also be the case that there are generic ones providing service
   for many resources of differing naming authorities.  Some may be
   authoritative and others not.  Some may be highly reliable or highly
   available or highly responsive to updates or highly focussed by other
   criteria such as subject matter.  Of course, it is also possible that
   some naming authorities will also act as resolvers for the resources
   they have named.  This document supports and encourages third party
   and distributed services in this area, and therefore intentionally
   makes no statements about requirements of URNs or naming authorities
   on resolvers.

Security Considerations

   Applications that require translation from names to locations, and
   the resources themselves may require the resources to be
   authenticated. It seems generally that the information about the
   authentication of either the name or the resource to which it refers
   should be carried by separate information passed along with the URN
   rather than in the URN itself.











 
RFC 1737        Requirements for Uniform Resource Names    December 1994


Authors' Addresses

   Larry Masinter
   Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
   3333 Coyote Hill Road
   Palo Alto, CA 94304

   Phone: (415) 812-4365
   Fax:   (415) 812-4333
   EMail: masinter@parc.xerox.com


   Karen Sollins
   MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
   545 Technology Square
   Cambridge, MA 02139

   Voice: (617) 253-6006
   Phone: (617) 253-2673
   EMail: sollins@lcs.mit.edu