ICANN Under Pressure

[paul]

ICANN under pressure to introduce non-Latin characters into DNS, their chief warn that it could break the whole internet. Read full article

[Jack]

Well,there is no option. Non-latin characters should be definitely banned for the security of the internet.The article says that there are 37 possible characters which should be used in domain names. Can anybody give me an idea of those characters other than A-Z alphabets which can be used in domain names?

[Rodney]

Such kind of unnecessary pressures may not solve the problem. Instead of benefiting people it can became a serious security threat.IMO proper research should be done before doing any kind of such major change.
Anglo-centric internet left people isolated and marginalized. Certainly I agree on this but research and development is a better option rather than pressure.

[Peter]

Originally Posted by Jack

Well,there is no option. Non-latin characters should be definitely banned for the security of the internet.The article says that there are 37 possible characters which should be used in domain names. Can anybody give me an idea of those characters other than A-Z alphabets which can be used in domain names?

Apart from the 26 alphabets i.e from A-Z, you can use numbers from 0-9 and '-' in a domain name. That makes it 37 possible characters.

[kev woodman]

I've got to say that if I was one of the billions of people who don't use the Latin alphabet I'd be pretty pissed off that I couldn't have a domain name in my own language. Sounds like ICANN just protecting their monopoly to me.

[paul]

Anyway one question comes to the mind, why they have such system that they can not do that, my point is the change is definitely needed keeping the security, compatibility, stability on priority and for that pressure is precise.

[chris]

Definitely Paul, I agree with you on that as the change is much needed by people who genuinely are looking forward for it as it will make things much easier for them as well as it’ll be according to their own liking. The technology is getting advanced day-by-day where man is looking forward for means of survival on other planets so I guess it won’t be impossible to implement the usage of foreign characters with all required measures, after all internet is for everyone.
Hope there will be positive results for all.

[sanderson]

The article says that a resolution on the issue is expected to be reached by the end of 2007 (?) I don't think the issue is that much small which can be solved in next 365 days! I personally think this issue not connected with ICANN only but it is connected with overall computing as latin is the base for everthing in the computing world.

[kev woodman]

It's not quite the same issue - if you're Chinese you could write a programming language which used Chinese characters. Nobody could stop you doing this and it might prove very popular. However you can't choose a Web address that utilises a Chinese character because ICANN can stop you.

[paul]

More likely I guess the US government intervened it like earlier .xxx domain what ever reason it may be. :eek:

[kev woodman]

That's the other concern about leaving it all to ICANN - too much US control.