[cabfpub] Suggestion to amend BR Section7.1.4.2.2d/e RE: EV Gudelines section 9.2.5 & X.520

[Erwann Abalea]

Bonjour Dimitris,

There’s surely not only one authoritative source.
ISO 3166 is one, but countries recognized by UN/ISO may not want to assign ISO3166-2 codes for their administrative subdivisions (it’s not mandatory).
FIPS 10-4 was another one, with small differences wrt ISO3166-1 (Taiwan is not recognized by US but has a code, North Korea isn’t recognized either and has a different code than the ISO one —KP/KN—, Palestine status is also different, …).
I think that UNStats has another list, but can’t retrieve a link to it; it may be used in the future for cooperative vehicles.

Of course, every country is free to have its own differences when considering a third-party country not a UN member (Taiwan (ROC), Kosovo, Vatican, …).
And there may exist differences on where borders between countries are located, depending on who you’re asking.


BTW, I just noticed there are some certificates with HK (Hong-Kong) and MO (Macao) as country code. These are not countries, but administrative regions of China (the DRC one).

Cordialement,
Erwann Abalea

Le 18 juil. 2016 à 13:30, Dimitris Zacharopoulos <jimmy at it.auth.gr<mailto:jimmy at it.auth.gr>> a écrit :

On 15/7/2016 9:25 μμ, Erwann Abalea wrote:
Bonjour Li-Chun,

That’s a long email. To avoid make it even longer, I propose to split it in several parts; that should help keep a manageable size.

I’ll start with the end, because why not?

You want to have special rules for small countries where ST or L is not available, and provide a list of such small countries in Note 2.
That’s in fact a list of ISO3166-1 codes. Not all of them are actual country codes (ISO3166-1 lists country and territories) and are suitable for use in DV/OV/EV certificates (see the definition of an acceptable country code in the BR).
Among them:

  *
  *   GF, GP, MQ, YT, RE are regions and departments of France (C=FR, and you can put their name into the stateOrProvinceName attribute), and they are even composed of cities (we have 6 administrative subdivision levels in France, with more than 36000 cities, we’re crazy)
  *   BV and SJ belong to Norway (C=NO), you can certainly put their name into the stateOrProvinceName attribute
  *   FK, GI, GS, PN, VG are British Overseas Territories (some are disputed either by Argentina or Spain, but still, C=UK)
  *   CX and NF are Australian territories (C=AU)
  *   FO is a constituent country of Denmark (C=DK), exactly like Scotland wrt UK
  *   GU is a non incorporated territory of the United States of America (C=US), just like Porto Rico
  *   GG, IM, JE are Crown dependancies, can possibly be considered as countries (C=GG/IM/JE), but anyway have administrative subdivisions
  *   LB, ME, MK, SI (not SVN) are countries, and have administrative subdivisions (localities, and a second level for LB)
  *   RS is a country (C=RS), has districts and localities, part of its province is Kosovo, a self-proclaimed country recognized by at least 2 UN members (C=XX is acceptable, as well as C=RS for this province)
  *   PS is in an unsatisfying situation, but anyway is recognized by at least 2 UN members, so C=PS is good, and this country has 2 levels of administrative subdivisions
  *   EH is a self-proclaimed country, disputed by Morocco, but recognized by at least 2 UN members, so C=EH is good, and this country has several localities
  *   SG is of course a country, but also a city, is composed of 64 islands, I don’t know if it’s possible to have their name in an attribute
  *   TW is a complicated story (with China), but this country is recognized by at least 2 UN members, so C=TW is fine; this country has administrative subdivisions
  *   VA is weird, not completely a sovereign state (its UN representation is the Holy See — and not Vatican), more like an international organization like UN; there’s no Vatican nationality; C=VA is possibly invalid
  *   AN is not to be used again until december 2061, replaced by CW/SX/BQ, their status is unclear
  *   NU is also unclear (is it part of NZ or UK, or an autonomous country?), anyway it has subdivisions (localities)

That leaves SG as possibly ST/L problematic (but « C=SG, L=Singapore » is fine), and CW/SX/BQ have to be reviewed. Is it really necessary to have exceptions?

Hello Erwann,

We discussed this issue on the recent policyWG call. One of the concerns raised, that is also reflected in your detailed analysis, comes down to "is there an authoritative source for this sort of information"? It is not easy for each member to provide a personal opinion on all these countries. Some of these assumptions may be 100% accurate and some may not. In any case, it is not easy to do research for each one of these ISO3166-1 countries, each one with its own history and special circumstances :)

Kenneth Myers sent an interesting repository that includes countries and subdivisions (https://cabforum.org/pipermail/policyreview/2016-July/000322.html). This online registry could be used as a starting point. Other official repositories may exist with similar information.


Best regards,
Dimitris.



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