Idn's to break up internet?

[Sarcle]

Four billion out of the six billion people on the planet use a non-Western (ASCII) alphabet, Fattal stressed. Everyone recognises the need to make the internet more of a global medium, especially with efforts in China and elsewhere starting to step outside the existing internet infrastructures to provide the services they want. At the Vancouver ICANN meeting, the subject of IDNs popped up in every supporting organisation.

News Link


I really don't see any other way around this.

The rest of the world want's idn's. India is currently working on making theirs a reality also.

Icann just ended a several day meeting discussing the issue of IDNS.

Microsoft are working on their browser to be out soon to handle Idns. Firefox already allows this. "To bad it's in less than a few percent of the homes in the US."

Idn's are getting pageranked. Idn's have overture with extension. They are searched for.
Forgot to add idn's already get traffic and revenue with minumum browser support also.

If I am missing the big picture then let me know. If there isn't a revolution brewing then all of these facts must be a figment of my imagination.

I am open to takes and opinions.

 

[mole]

Geesh Sarcle, you sure you didn't open up a Pandora's box here? Drix will jump on this...:shy:

 

[Sarcle]

Geesh Sarcle, you sure you didn't open up a Pandora's box here? Drix will jump on this...:shy:

I'm sure I did mole. By the way love the Warhol Einstein Avatar.

I would really like to see a healthy discussion on Idn's instead of throwing out jabs and uppercuts.

I personally can't see any other way around this than it actually become a reality very soon or the majority of the world will get impatient and just cut icann or the US out.

I really believe that the time for saying that "The rest of the world should just speak english." line, is growing old and tiresome.

The issue of phishing on idn's is nothing more than a ploy to try to derail idn's or at the very least stall them even more. I will point out that I tried to register an idn the other day that is totally ambigious. Just to see if it's still possible. The domain is хxx.com Just looking at it you would not be able to tell the difference. The fact is the first two letters are "Cryllic' and the last is latin character. It's shows available yet you can't register it.

So again more takes on this issue please, but back them up with some sort of reference please.

 

[fab]

I reall don't see any purpose for them English is an international language, especially if we include all latin letter based languages. I think this is and will totally destroy the net.

 

[Andrew Shaw]

I think your point is very good... It seems very strange IDNs havent picked up years ago. Not everyone speaks english, and not everyone uses the english alphabit. English may be an international language, but that doesnt mean everyone knows how to speak english, let alone type it.

 

[Rubber Duck]

No, I actually agree that there is high level of stress at the moment. This is largely due to ICANNs abysmal failure in the timely implementation of IDN.

I think that ICANN itself has realised that there is a problem has tried to address the problem by appointing a committee that reflects a wider International Interest. However, the meeting in Vancouver would have been more accurately described as a Talking Shop with some contributers wasting valuable discussion time pushing hard for a Luddite flat name space that offers no solutions, but only more problems.

It was clear that committee, whilst agreeing progress was necessary has not been very pro-active in appraising themselves of all the information available prior to the meeting. I sincerely hope that they get their act together and start to formulate clear policies with a view to immediate implementation.

I do not agree that the risk of Balkanisation of the Internet is not a risk. If there is such a split the United States risks to find itself in a minority of one. Effectively ICANN will become USCANN. I sincerely hope that this situation does not arise, as I believe that the US still has a lot it could offer in leading the Internet forward, but if the US wants to have the status of Leader then it about time it showed some leadership. If you are dependent on a constituency, as indeed they are, then the views, concerns and aspirations of others needs to be taken into account and acted upon.

I still think that the US Adminstration holds the view that everybody that matters speaks English. After all God speaks to George and he speaks in English! or perhaps he just seeks George's advice!

The writing is on the wall. Just hope it is in English otherwise these Philistines will not even bother to read it!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

I reall don't see any purpose for them English is an international language, especially if we include all latin letter based languages. I think this is and will totally destroy the net.

You are a prime example of the problem that is being described!

The issue of phishing on idn's is nothing more than a ploy to try to derail idn's or at the very least stall them even more. I will point out that I tried to register an idn the other day that is totally ambigious. Just to see if it's still possible. The domain is хxx.com Just looking at it you would not be able to tell the difference. The fact is the first two letters are "Cryllic' and the last is latin character. It's shows available yet you can't register it.

Yes, this is a complete Red-Herring, ICANN are taking the steps to ensure that phishing is controlled in the West. The only way that people in the East can be protected is to reduce their dependence on ambigious transliterations of their language. If you are anti-phishing then you are either pro-IDN or a total hypocrite!

Dave Wrixon

 

[Sarcle]

I reall don't see any purpose for them English is an international language, especially if we include all latin letter based languages. I think this is and will totally destroy the net.

On the contrary Fab it is lack of initiative that will be it's undoing.

You must realize we are at a critical moment here for the internet and the US has an opportunity to seize this. They have a chance to realize that your suggestion is just not possible with all of the diverse people in the world. The rest of the world is tired of US policies and control.

The rest of the world, average people, type and search in their native tongue.
They are crying out for an internet that is suitable for them.

If the US and it's swelling of pride would just realize that it would be "benificial", I guess that's the wrong word, imperative that they act as soon as possible or the powers to be wont be waiting around any longer for silly talks and nonaction and just go ahead and section out the interent.

 

[fab]

I live in a country which uses non-latin letters. I think there is a difference between searching and domain names. If you're going to continue with IDN domains, what about IDN TLD's. Dot.Com is still and will continue to reign, why should we have IDN.COM and not have DOT.IDN. Numbers are also international. This will make it close to impossible for surfers without the right ascii to find web-sites. Domains are no more than addresses. I really don't see any reason why they should reflect "US and it's swelling of pride"

 

[ForumDomains]

...I do not agree that the risk of Balkanisation of the Internet is not a risk. If there is such a split the United States risks to find itself in a minority of one. Effectively ICANN will become USCANN...

What does "Balkanization" mean? Why is that so bad?

 

[Rubber Duck]

I live in a country which uses non-latin letters. I think there is a difference between searching and domain names. If you're going to continue with IDN domains, what about IDN TLD's. Dot.Com is still and will continue to reign, why should we have IDN.COM and not have DOT.IDN. Numbers are also international. This will make it close to impossible for surfers without the right ascii to find web-sites. Domains are no more than addresses. I really don't see any reason why they should reflect "US and it's swelling of pride"

Your getting me a bit confused here, but there is a huge debate going on about the best way to represent IDN.IDN.

For those of you who may be confused on this issue, TLD IDN will only be used initially to represent existing domain registries. ccTLD IDN will be introduced into the Root Servers. gTLDs which may appear in several hundred different representations will be done by Alias mapping. Dot com will be universal as it is today, but it won't necessarily look like dot com to me and you, indeed to most people it will take on a completely differenct appearance. It will, however, always resolve to the same IP number and it will alway be the same domain and be part of the same registrary.

Latin numbers I believe will be valid in all name spaces, although some will no doubt use alternative local scripts for some applications. You will find that nearly all keyboards will still have a full compliment of ASCII characters, but they will also have a complete set of local characters, as indeed many do now. The availability will increase and in India there is work in progress on a 12 Script Keyboard, where the will be LCDs in the keys. Rather them than me!

You are precisely correct. Domain names are nothing more than Aliases that make IP address memorable. The only problem is that Uncle Sam doesn't want others to have addresses that are any more comprehensible than IP numbers that they represent. It is not surprising that there is huge resentment. If the US wants to continue being a member of the Club let alone Honorary Life President then it is going to have to real, real fast!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

What does "Balkanization" mean? Why is that so bad?

Is this a competition to see, who can make the most Inane comments in an hour, or something???

Balkanisation refers to the breakup of Yugoslavia into many little Fifedoms, which could have parallels to the future development of the Internet if the there is not more Leadership shown in rolling out the benefits to the rest of the Globe. Needless to say some are finding US navel gazing too frustrating and have expressed the view that if the Global Net doesn't give them what they want they will set up something within their own borders that will. This would effectively mean cutting themselves off from the outside world, but in fact some of them see making internal communications work more important than pandering to the US. In fact so many are getting impatient that most of Asia would split and set up their own Internet. After that is all a question of who sees which alliances as being more critical. Could be that US ends up rather isolated!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[ForumDomains]

...Balkanisation refers to the breakup of Yugoslavia into many little Fifedoms...

Well, is breaking of Yugoslavia so bad?

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

1. The first Balkanization was embodied in the Balkan Wars, and the term was reaffirmed in the Yugoslav wars.

2. Balkan Wars - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars
The Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912-1913 in the course of which the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Serbia) first conquered Ottoman-held Macedonia and most of Thrace and then fell out over the division of the spoils, Bulgaria suffering defeat at the hands of her former allies and losing much of what she had been promised in the initial partition scheme.

The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of nation-states on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Serbians had gained substantial territory during the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1877-78, while Greece acquired Thessaly in 1881 (although it lost a small area to Turkey in 1897) and Bulgaria (an autonomous principality since 1878) incorporated the formerly distinct province of Eastern Rumelia (1885). All three as well as tiny Montenegro sought additional territories within the large Turkish-ruled regions known as Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace...

3. Recently the term has been used in American urban planning to describe the process of how gated communities are created. There are also attempts to use the term Balkanization in a positive way equating Balkanization with the need for sustenance of a group or society. It used to be hostile, but recent usages of the term show the potential of Balkanization vis-a-vis democratic processes.

All above is quoted from wikipedia...

So, why do you think 'Balkanization" is so bad?
"... recent usages of the term show the potential of Balkanization vis-a-vis democratic processes"?!

 

[Rubber Duck]

Well, is breaking of Yugoslavia so bad?

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkanization

1. The first Balkanization was embodied in the Balkan Wars, and the term was reaffirmed in the Yugoslav wars.

2. Balkan Wars - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars
The Balkan Wars were two wars in South-eastern Europe in 1912-1913 in the course of which the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and Serbia) first conquered Ottoman-held Macedonia and most of Thrace and then fell out over the division of the spoils, Bulgaria suffering defeat at the hands of her former allies and losing much of what she had been promised in the initial partition scheme.

The background to the wars lies in the incomplete emergence of nation-states on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. Serbians had gained substantial territory during the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1877-78, while Greece acquired Thessaly in 1881 (although it lost a small area to Turkey in 1897) and Bulgaria (an autonomous principality since 1878) incorporated the formerly distinct province of Eastern Rumelia (1885). All three as well as tiny Montenegro sought additional territories within the large Turkish-ruled regions known as Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace...

3. Recently the term has been used in American urban planning to describe the process of how gated communities are created. There are also attempts to use the term Balkanization in a positive way equating Balkanization with the need for sustenance of a group or society. It used to be hostile, but recent usages of the term show the potential of Balkanization vis-a-vis democratic processes.

All above is quoted from wikipedia...

So, why do you think 'Balkanization" is so bad?
"... recent usages of the term show the potential of Balkanization vis-a-vis democratic processes"?!

No, you are probably right that the disintegration of Yugoslavia was probably a good thing. That is not the same as each of trying to set up our own independant communications company with just one user each. The Internet works because it reaches everybody.

Disintegration of the World Wide Web would be a disaster! But if it happens you can blame the US for not trying to enfranchise its partners. Its an American trait to reach out for support from the World, but expect to have total control over the Agenda. Things have got to change!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[none]

I live in a country which uses non-latin letters. I think there is a difference between searching and domain names. If you're going to continue with IDN domains, what about IDN TLD's. Dot.Com is still and will continue to reign, why should we have IDN.COM and not have DOT.IDN. Numbers are also international. This will make it close to impossible for surfers without the right ascii to find web-sites. Domains are no more than addresses. I really don't see any reason why they should reflect "US and it's swelling of pride"

Have you ever seen a forum in Chinese with millions of users? Everything is written in Chinese except for the domain name. It's much easier for other chinese to remember the Chinese domain name than the English.

As drwixon mentions, .com will have a Chinese alias down the road which will only make things that much simpler. So, for example, users would be able to type-in 狗.com or 狗.ロ (imagine that ロ is the alias to .com) which will resolve to the same address.

 

[Rubber Duck]

As drwixon mentions, .com will have a Chinese alias down the road which will only make things that much simpler. So, for example, users would be able to type-in 狗.com or 狗.ロ (imagine that ロ is the alias to .com) which will resolve to the same address.

Actuallly the Verisign proposals for the dot com Aliases are:

xn--55qx5d 公司 Chinese
xn--6oq404h 会社 Japanese
xn--zgb ش Arabic

The last one is very interesting for us as we have ش.com which will go to:

ش.ش or "com.com"

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

 

[Andrew Shaw]

speaking of which... what registrars let you register IDN names?

They are somewhat hard to find...

I thought for sure people could freely register them, but many chose not to. Ive always triend to find a decent registrar but could never find a thing. Do they even allow you to register them anymore?

 

[Sarcle]

what registrars let you register IDN names?

You can register idn's at many places. Personally I use domainsite.com and idotz.net. Just search google for "idn domains" and lot's of places will pop up.
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I will post this article also as it pertains to the happenings recently including Icanns "idn workshop"

While ICANN dithered, groups in China and in Arabic speaking countries went ahead with experiments in IDNs for Chinese and Arabic, and set up experimental parallel root zones with names in the local character sets. These experiments worked (no surprise, Unicode and punycode are technically sound) and now those roots are the roots that everyone in those countries use.

News link

This affects not only idns; but all domains in general. Idn's just so happen to be what other counties are after. But it will ultimatly affect all of the web.

I really hope Icann can pull this off, it looks to be the bottom of the ninth with 2 outs and 2 strikes. Icann knows it, which is why it has been so visable with press releases about this very topic.

 

[Olney]

I think it's fine for people to doubt that IDN Domains will be a big hit or even a necessity. It's like pioneering. You can go first & grab all the gold you want or you can sit & wait.

I'll be the first to say in the Japanese market I've found gold guys...

The people who are not interested are already set in their market. I'm not, my forte is the Japanese market.

You guys aren't here but japanese are forced to use the worst possible domain names because the good short ones in English are already gone. This opens up a huge flood gate... I'm on the train in Tokyo I seeDomain names with hyphens, subdomains, everything & most are not able to just go home & remember the URLs that's a big point. People will start to be able to remember a domain name with ease...

 

[Edwin]

Actuallly the Verisign proposals for the dot com Aliases are:
xn--6oq404h 会社 Japanese

That one's just silly, because it means "company" and therefore doesn't really work well for anything other than the company name. Sony.会社 looks logical, 車.会社 (literally "car company") looks rather stupid, especially compared to "car.com" which has no overt "company" connotations. 東京.会社 (literally "tokyo company") looks even worse compared to tokyo.com (or 東京.com of course)!

There's a reason why "com" = "commercial", not "company"...

 

[Olney]

It takes less than 1 second to switch from Hiragana to Romaji to type .com

You know I realize that what if all people knew that to type in every single Japanese word you actually had to use the space bar afterwards (to select the term)????

Switching over to type .com is easy for Japanese people, believe me. They switch over the language modes continuosly while typing. I don't think the .会社 will fly because they'll just make it available to YK's or KK's(companies) like before...

No need to make the internet thing harder in Japan NTT did a good job of that in the beginning.

 

[Rubber Duck]

That one's just silly, because it means "company" and therefore doesn't really work well for anything other than the company name. Sony.会社 looks logical, 車.会社 (literally "car company") looks rather stupid, especially compared to "car.com" which has no overt "company" connotations. 東京.会社 (literally "tokyo company") looks even worse compared to tokyo.com (or 東京.com of course)!

There's a reason why "com" = "commercial", not "company"...

Just quoting from the Verisign White Paper on Dname. You may be right but these appear very much to be the Verisign proposals.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

It takes less than 1 second to switch from Hiragana to Romaji to type .com

You know I realize that what if all people knew that to type in every single Japanese word you actually had to use the space bar afterwards (to select the term)????

Switching over to type .com is easy for Japanese people, believe me. They switch over the language modes continuosly while typing. I don't think the .会社 will fly because they'll just make it available to YK's or KK's(companies) like before...

No need to make the internet thing harder in Japan NTT did a good job of that in the beginning.

Yes, I agree with Chinese and Japanese there probably isn't much of a problem but they are all demanding IDN.IDN. This won't greatly affect the current registry structure, all means is that you will have the option of typing in or having the extension displayed in whatever language you prefer.

When it comese to Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, this is going to be absolutely essential. Switching scripts means switching cursor direction for right to left languages, which causes Chaos. Even without these languages are a nightmare a initial and final forms of letters vary from how they appear in the middle of words.

Interestingly, with Arabic Verisign have taken a different view on how the dot com show be represented and taken an approach similar to that being suggested by Edwin. The are going to use a single character, which appears to be fairly arbituary.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon