ICANN Approves Domain Names We Can't Type

ICANN Approves Domain Names We Can't Type

www.pcworld.com

This is a bad day for the English language, after ICANN approved non-Latin characters for use in Internet domain names. Having invented the Internet--40 years ago yesterday--the U.S. has given away whatever advantage it offers English-speakers.

This was bound to happen after the U.S. recently recanted on its "ownership" of the Internet in a new agreement with ICANN, the Internet's primary governing body.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
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www.technewsworld.com
www.eweek.com
www.washingtonpost.com

The internet URL is now to be opened up to non Latin characters. This is a great day for cultural enhancement; social justice for those languages which don't use our alphabet and a tearing down of the wall that structured language imposes. It may be that the internet which has brought us all together under one alphabet will now divide us into groups of our own language - Stick that the the NWO.

But what of security?

If URLs can now be composed of any character from any language then how will we know what is truly safe and what isn't.

This isn't some hookum from me about religions, beliefs or terrorism. I'm talking on a practical link location front. Will I know what I'm clicking upon? Will others know what they are clicking upon?

100,000 characters will be the standard usable alphabet for web addresses. Public file locations could be held under www.... and then any length with variation upon which letters are used; some Japanese, some Sanskrit, some Greek. The chances for control over that are ridiculously small.

So any and all thoughts as always are welcome. I can't reply as I only have permission to post new news threads - but I will read them all and am sure that my sentiments will surface through others shared thoughts.

-m0r

www.pcworld.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is very bad news indeed as you have stated, you won't know what link you are "clicking" or where you are going.

I don't know how the companies that monitor phishing sites will be able to keep up if many legitimate sites start using these characters.

A sad day for the internet indeed.

its all about money man..

now think of how many more domains they will sell this year alone

and at 10 dollars a pop..

Originally posted by KATSUO
its all about money man..

now think of how many more domains they will sell this year alone

and at 10 dollars a pop..

They should be free, huh?

All the servers, all the admins... all the routers and switches... all free, eh?

What is wrong with you?

Originally posted by tribewilder
This is very bad news indeed as you have stated, you won't know what link you are "clicking" or where you are going.

I don't know how the companies that monitor phishing sites will be able to keep up if many legitimate sites start using these characters.

A sad day for the internet indeed.

So you're telling me that you KNOW where you are clicking if you go to some random site like www.samatama.com... ??

*Snip*

Mod Note: General ATS Discussion Etiquette – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 10/30/2009 by semperfortis]

Originally posted by m0r1arty

If URLs can now be composed of any character from any language then how will we know what is truly safe and what isn't.

You're absolutely correct!

As long as sites are composed of 1 through 9 and A through Z, we know what is safe!

OH MY GOD, THE URL IZ IN AMERICAN, BUT ITZ ALL IN MOONTALK!! OMG, WAT DO I CLIK ON 4 PRAWN?!

Chill... it's really not that big a deal guys. In fact, if you know a second language - get some cash together and start buying up as many domain names as you can. They can go for some decent cash down the road.

reply to post by m0r1arty

The internet URL is now to be opened up to non Latin characters.

This seems like a bad idea to me. Not scary bad, not security bad...but "bridge made of balsa wood" bad.

ascii and ebcdic machines have codes that directly correspond to standard alphanumeric characters. But, certain "exotic" characters like in asian languages do not have codes. They are constructed by putting together existing codes. For example, on an ascii machine the letter "a" is decimcal-97. On an ebcdic machine it's decimal-61. But now let's consider japanese. For example, in hiragana there is also an "a" character, but it has no native code. There is no decimal number that corresponds to hiragana "a." So it's "constructed" artificially by putting together two codes.

Even worse, there's not even an agreed upon convention for constructing it. There's ISO/IEC 2002, Shift_JIS, and a few others. Each of these methods "construct" non-native characters by assigning them a sequence of known codes. But each of these methods assigns their own sequence that may or may not match the sequence used by other methods.

The problem isn't unsurmountable. Much of it could be dealt with simply by agreeing on a standard. But as it is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if different conversion systems use codes that share some but not all characters. A code that translates to a hiragana "a" in one system might translate to a katakana "ha" in another system. I don't know. Somebody would have to check. What happens if somebody registers in a different system than somebody else is using? What happens if different registrars (who don't know what they're doing, let alone what the other registratrs are doing) registers a domain that in their system appears unique, but corresponds to a totally different name with identical character encoding in a different system?

Again...completely resolvable simply with some caution, but with one registrar and only one way of doing things, this sort of problem was never an issue. With ICANN allowing so many different entities to be involved, I'm not totally convinced problems won't emerge.



[edit on 31-10-2009 by LordBucket]

if youre worried about web safety, there are things that let you know which websites are safe and which arent.

like this: www.mywot.com...
user generated website safety ratings.
there are others like it, this is just the one i use.
NOTE: im not advertising for WOT, it is just an example of what i meant.


is the website in a different language? translate it.
what if you dont want to? go to a different site.



[edit on 31-10-2009 by ELECTRICkoolaidZOMBIEtest]

Good finally. For a good example, my city url is www.ylojarvi.fi and it should be www.ylöjärvi.fi. This only applies to double lettered country domains such as .fi, .se, .cn etc. If you have issues with clicking on problematic links then the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.

reply to post by PsykoOps

my city url is www.ylojarvi.fi and it should be www.ylöjärvi.fi.

If you have issues with clicking on problematic links then the problem is between the keyboard and the chair.

Clicking on links is not an issue. In your example, most people will be unable to type the URL. So how do they get to it? Go to a search engine and do a search, and click on that link, right? But what do you expect them to type into the search engine? They can't type the characters, remember?

And your example is much simpler than it might be: all the characters are standard ascii. The vowels with little dots can at least be typed on a windows machines by holding down alt and using the numeric keypad.

What do you expect people to do when the characters in a URL are two byte sequences, one of which is an invisible, untypeable character?

There are alt-codes and there is a wonderful tool that comes with almost all computers called character map (found in accessories in windows machines) capable of entering every possible character into a URL. You do not need to purchase a new keyboard just to enter éõöüĉś (I live in the united states, I have an english keyboard. This took two seconds.)

As for security, there are 'security certificates' for legitimate sites such as banks and communication systems as well as a variety of tools such as SiteAdvisor and even some browsers that implement anti-phishing tools.

This is not the end of the world, this is not a difficult concept to grasp.

I think it's great that other countries can now use letters they feel more comfortable with.

reply to post by LordBucket


At least for my example, typing in ylojarvi on the search in google works just as well. Also the fast majority of people who need to type that already have scandinavian keyboard layouts.

What a horrendous shock for Americans to discover that there is an entire world out there that is not American, and speaks other languages,

It is just awful to realize that America no longer rules the entire world in all things..

Even more horrible than the total collapse of the US dollar, the total defeat of the US military in every war it has started, is to learn that Americans cannot now access some overseas internet sites.

Click here for more information.

Look ICANN has "improved" something that was working just fine to start with. Maybe they can work on "improving sliced bread" next since there is nothing wrong with that either.

I can see it now ICANN announces that the new version of sliced bread is better for everyone, however, it will not fit any electric toasters currenlty in use outisde of Latvia.

Geezzz.....just leave stuff alone already!

I will admit that I am ignorant in many things, but calling someone an idiot shows a very immature lack of respect.

Perhaps you would like to enlighten us on the meaning of life so we know that we aren't dealing with someone who is ignorant as well.

The problem in this system as I see it is exactly as others have pointed out, in the translation. Nothing more, nothing less. This will indeed cause all sorts of headaches in resolving the addresses.

with respect...............

Originally posted by LordBucket
reply to post by PsykoOps

 

What do you expect people to do when the characters in a URL are two byte sequences, one of which is an invisible, untypeable character?

I think it is fair to assume that if they cannot type it they cannot read it so why bother? Can you read Japanese, Mandarin or Thai, etc. etc. etc.? No? Don't waste your time 外人.

[edit on 31-10-2009 by Lilitu]

Now I am going to have to figure out how to register #####.com and ##so#.com and #atsinthe#.com using Chinese characters.

SO much work...