[Handle-info] is rfc3651 still up to date?

[Gerhard Gonter <ggonter@gmail.com>]

The venerable rfc3651[1] describes how data in Handle entries are
encoded, so I tried to make sense of the HS_SITE element of our own
0.NA Handle entry [2].  I know, the rfc describes the binary structure
of the Handle protocol data unit while the web server presents
something interpreted.  I assume, it is a hex dump of what would be
expected as the original element.  However, the structure of the
HS_SITE element of [2] seems not to be matching what is described in
the rfc [1].  For instance, the IP address of the Handle server can be
found in there as "00000000000000000000000083820432" which should
represent the IPv6 address of the machine while the rfc states it
*should* be encoded there as "00000000000000000000FFFF83820432" :

-- 8< ---
<Address>
         The 16-byte IPv6 [15, 16] address of the handle server.  Any
         IPv4 address should be presented as :::::FFFF:xxxx:xxxx (where
         xxxx:xxxx can be any 4-byte IPv4 address).
--- >8 ---

I know, the "should" here is not a "MUST" as defined in rfc 2119 [3].
However, it does not match. There are other parts of the HS_SITE
element that do not match (IMHO) the description in rfc3651, but if
anyone can point me to an up-to-date documentation of the data
structures (or other documentation relevant for the Handle System), I
will try to make more sense of what i can find in live data.

* [1] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3651#page-17
* [2] http://hdl.handle.net/0.NA/11353
* [3] https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119

regards, Gerhard Gonter
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