International URLs Pass First Test

Off the Rails writes "The BBC reports on the results of a successful test of non-ASCII domain names on Internet-equivalent hardware (pdf) carried out last October. The next stage is to plug the system into the net, and if it still works, it could go live sometime next year. 'Early work on the technical feasibility of using non-English character sets suggested that the address system would cope with the introduction of international characters tests were called for to ensure this was the case ... Also needed are policy decisions by Icann on how the internationalised domain names fit in and work with the existing rules governing the running of the address books. Icann is under pressure to get the international domain names working because some nations, in particular China, are working on their own technology to support their own character sets.'"

Comments

Phishing

[Alioth]

In my skim through the various links, I didn't see what they are proposing to do for practical real-world problems such as phishing. What are they going to do to ensure that a phisher doesn't register a domain with characters that look almost indistinguishible from different characters in a different language, so as to trick users into visiting the phisher's site instead of the legitimate version of the site?

What about security issues?

[argent]

The concern I have with IDNs is that they will make it too easy to produce "lookalike" domains, like "mcrosoft.com".

Testing functionality and behaviour with "good" names is an easy bar to hurdle.

Cool new phishes

[Threni]

I look forward to www.paypa|.com etc etc