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ICANN Under Pressure Over Non-Latin Characters
RidcullyTheBrown writes "A story from the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that ICANN is under pressure to introduce non-Latin characters into DNS names sooner rather than later. The effort is being spearheaded by nations in the Middle East and Asia. Currently there are only 37 characters usable in DNS entries, out of an estimated 50,000 that would be usable if ICANN changed naming restrictions. Given that some bind implementations still barf on an underscore, is this really premature?" From the article: "Plans to fast-track the introduction of non-English characters in website domain names could 'break the whole internet', warns ICANN chief executive Paul Twomey ... Twomey refuses to rush the process, and is currently conducting 'laboratory testing' to ensure that nothing can go wrong. 'The internet is like a fifteen story building, and with international domain names what we're trying to do is change the bricks in the basement,' he said. 'If we change the bricks there's all these layers of code above the DNS ... we have to make sure that if we change the system, the rest is all going to work.'" Given that some societies have used non-Latin characters for thousands of years, is this a bit late in coming?
Wait, so it's not tubes... It's a 15 story building?
Anyone else getting more lost every day?
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
It won't break the whole Internet! Just DNS. DNS is overrated anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish reading all the new posts on 66.35.250.150.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
ICANN Under Pressure Over Non-Latin Characters
You mean white people?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish reading all the new posts on 66.35.250.150.
Base-Ten CHAUVINIST!!!
What about societies that use Base 2 [binary], or Base 8 [octal], or Base 16 [hexadecimal]?
Or entire societies, like the British empire, which use no base at all?
12 inches in a foot. 3 feet in a yard. 1760 yards in a mile...
60 seconds in a minute. 60 minutes in a hour. 24 hours in a day. 7 days in a week. 52 weeks in a year [give or take]...
Or how about base 12?
12 keys in a chromatic scale: A 440, then, logarithmically [give or take a little well-tempering]: A#, B, B# == C [kinda sorta], C#, D, D#, E, E# == F [kinda sorta], F#, G, G#, and finally A 880.
Except that on the continent, things are often just a little sharper - say A 443/444/445 & A 886/888/890...
And let's not even get into water freeezing & boiling at 32 & 212 versus 0 & 100...