If the result of looking up a URN was simply a list of URLs, the meta-information problem would not be addressed. This is because in order to find out more information about a particular instance of a resource, it would be necessary to use the resource's URL - this leads us back to the dangling links problem!
This section introduces a data format called the Uniform Resource Characteristic (URC). The URC is being developed in concert with the URN, and aims to provide a container for meta-information.
There are currently three proposals for URCs - the first is linked to the dns proposal, and uses whois++ for URN resolution. The second is linked to the x-dns-2 proposal for URNs, and uses HTTP for URN resolution, and the third uses the same HTTP framework as the second, but provides a way for URCs to be written in SGML[36]. The rest of this section discusses these proposals.