[Servercert-wg] Correct state and locality for US army post offices

[Tim Hollebeek]

A quick question for you all, since the baseline requirements are unclear
here.

 

For those unfamiliar with addresses for US foreign military bases and
diplomatic posts, they look something like this:

 

Somepersonplaceorthing XXX

Miltary unit / box / whatever

APO AE 12345

 

See also: https://faq.usps.com/s/article/How-Do-I-Address-Military-Mail

 

These locations intentionally do not use foreign city / state codes to avoid
having their mail routed through foreign mail 

systems, and in some cases because the location is US soil and/or not
subject to foreign jurisdiction anyway.  These locations

even have US zipcodes assigned.  For example, 962xx is actually in Korea,
and is associated with the two letter postal

code AP.  For example, the US embassy in Seoul has the following US mailing
address:

 

US Embassy Seoul

Unit #9600

DPO AP 96209

 

The question is what is the best practice for converting such an address to
C=, L=, ST= format.  Options include:

 

1.	C=US, L=APO AP, ST=(none)    [ST can be omitted if L is present]
2.	C=US, L=APO, ST=AP                 [using official postal code as
ST]
3.	other?

 

I think it's pretty clear that (1) complies with the BRs.  The question is
whether (2) does.  The ST field is defined as

"state or province information", but we know from previous discussions that
it is not strictly limited to things named

"states" or "provinces", as it can also include functionally similar
political subdivisions like Swiss cantons.  The question

is whether having a US postal code and official two letter postal
abbreviation means that AP, AE, and AA are legal

values of the ST field.

 

Of course, this question would be easy to answer if my suggestion to use ISO
3166-2 as the official list of valid ST fields

had been adopted, but unfortunately there didn't seem to be much support for
it.

 

Curious to hear what others think.

 

-Tim

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