OT: Cyrillic character domain names

Christopher Browne cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Tue Dec 29 17:04:54 UTC 2009


On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 4:47 AM, Rajinder Yadav <devguy.ca-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Dean Collins wrote:
>>
>> UPDATE - This is really really bad - check out the paypal phishing example
>> on my blog already using Cyrillic characters
>>
>>
>> http://blog.collins.net.pr/2009/12/de-latinisation-of-web.html
>>
>>
>> Please forward to everyone in a position to stop ICANN, i cant believe
>> they didn't think of this in advance.

"I can't believe they didn't think of this in advance"...

Actually, Dean Collins is using something like irony to try to suggest
he *DOES* think that ICANN was ignorant of the issue.

This is a Well Known Issue that people have been aware of for many
years now.  There was a paper in CACM back in 2002 on homograph
attacks; see link from
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack>

There is a counterposition that the "reactionary" attempt to keep the
web Latinized is the racist/imperialist actions of the Anglo-American
bits of the world, trying to hold down people of other languages and
alphabets.

If you are into assuming whatever you like to assume, then all of
these are simultaneously fairly reasonable positions to hold.

Reality is a sufficiently complex thing that there is no trivial
resolution to this from either technical or political perspectives.

Note that if ICANN were to refuse to accept IDN name registration,
this would be likely to increase the risk of a splitting of the root,
as countries that:
 a) Don't use Latin characters, and
 b) Are powerful enough to be important on the world stage, and
 c) Are prideful enough to like dominance over Latin-based portions of the world
are likely to be willing to go their own way.

China falls into that category, for sure, but is surely not alone.
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