ICANN CEO: IDN's could "break the internet."

[Rockafeller]

November 21, 2006 - 3:59PM


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.

To date, website names can only be registered using Latin characters, which effectively alienates countries using Arabic, Chinese and other foreign letters from registering internet addresses in their native tongue.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is a non-profit body responsible for, among other things, administering the domain name system (DNS).

A domain name is a unique address that allows people to access a website, for example, smh.com.au.

Speaking in Sydney today, Australian-born Twomey said that, at the recent United Nations internet summit held in Athens, he and ICANN were placed under significant "political pressure" to allow non-English letters in domain names.

One source of the pressure was Adama Samassekou, president of the African Academy of Languages in Mali, who said that the Anglo-centric internet left people isolated and marginalised.

"I think the digital divide is not as important as the linguistic divide. And that's the one we should be bridging in order to guarantee the democratic governance of the internet," said Samassekou.

But 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."

At present there are 37 possible characters that can be used in domain names, but if non-English letters are allowed, this number would rise to 50,000 or more, said Twomey.

He said that this could create problems where, for example, a character in Urdu looks identical to one in Arabic. This would confuse the system and make it difficult to direct users to the right website every time.

"We live in multicultural Sydney ... and we all want a multicultural internet," said Twomey.

"And yet, there's one big difference between human beings and computers. Human beings can deal with ambiguity, but computers can't."

Poor implementation of foreign domain names may also pose security risks, whereby fraud artists could create websites with names that appear identical to current English language sites, but in fact replace some of the English characters with similar-looking foreign characters.

As a result, users may think they're on the legitimate version of the site, when in fact they're visiting a fake created by fraudsters looking to steal their personal details.

In light of this, ICANN is working closely with developers to ensure that applications such as web browsers and e-commerce software are upgraded so that they can handle the slew of potential new web addresses.

A resolution on the issue is expected to be reached by the end of 2007.

[blastfromthepast]

Not again!

[Prodigy]

repost, we've seen this about 3-4 times already. The situation is getting better from other angles.

[Wot]

"If you've been holding out on that new domain registration until you could have it in Hindi, you've only got a year left to wait."


http://origin.arstechnica.com/news.a...1121-8266.html


http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...ca.com&x_ddp=Y

Sorry, dug this one up also! RD -get in there and sort em out.

[Rubber Duck]

Who cares. I am now renewing Hindi for the second time!

Originally Posted by Wot

"If you've been holding out on that new domain registration until you could have it in Hindi, you've only got a year left to wait."


http://origin.arstechnica.com/news.a...1121-8266.html


http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/...ca.com&x_ddp=Y

Sorry, dug this one up also! RD -get in there and sort em out.

[burnsinternet]

Why do people post that article after NOT reading it and then refuse to read the comments?

[Rockafeller]

Originally Posted by burnsinternet

Why do people post that article after NOT reading it and then refuse to read the comments?

I've read the article and the comments.

[touchring]

Originally Posted by burnsinternet

Why do people post that article after NOT reading it and then refuse to read the comments?

Why do people post that articles repeatedly on this forum when they already know that ICANN is trying as hard as possible to delay the process?

And if they did not delay the process, how can amateurs like us get generic IDN?

[blastfromthepast]

The truth is, some ICANN affiliated insiders got a hold of some top level IDNs since day 1.

[Rockafeller]

It would be interesting to find out what type of domains/IDNs employees at ICANN own.

[bwhhisc]

Punycode with 37 Latin letters can handle the processing for all 50,000 international letters and symbols some jackass is suggesing has to be crammed into the root of the DNS and internet to make it "truly" international.

IDNs will be mainstream in the next few years via the punycode system, long before they bring forward even an Engineering "idea" of how they would even go about ADDING 50,000 new symbols to the LESS THAN 100 letters, numbers, hypen, symbols etc. that operate the entire system today.

[touchring]

Really, just self-promotion, but never mind, no one outside the domain biz will even know who Twomey is, or even what ICANN is.

The key is really Microsoft, and no one else.

[bwhhisc]

Originally Posted by touchring

Really, just self-promotion, but never mind, no one outside the domain biz will even know who Twomey is, or even what ICANN is.
The key is really Microsoft, and no one else.

Pisses me off he is out passing bad gas, even upsetting our ascii friends who are just starting to take notice of idns in some cases, and many of them understanding the concept.
.
They have enough problems just figuring out what an IDN is much less the thought of "foreigners" plowing 50,000 new symbols into "their" system and creating total chaos. lol

[blastfromthepast]

Edit.

[blastfromthepast]

Edit. Continued in Members' area.