Re: IDN problem.... :(

One possible solution for the IDN is to determine "similar" looking 
characters, such as I (U+ 0049: Latin Capital Letter L)  and l (U+006C: 
Latin Small Letter L) (which look visually identical in Arial Unicode 
MS) and limit new  registration of only one of the code points.

This would also cut the cost of registration fees for the companies.

This of course does not totally solve the problem, but it would limit 
the spoofing.

Areas that it would not solve the problem would include Japanese Kana 
some of which have small and large forms, which are use differently but 
often need to be mixed in a word or name. It is conceivable that a 
company whose name is entirely "big" Hiragana could be spoofed with one 
made up of small Hiragana only, giving very little difference in 
appearance, apart from size.

Note also that in the case of Hiragana or Katakana used this way, the 
"colouring" solution would not distinguish, as they are both part of the 
same Unicode sub range. In fact the small and large versions of the 
characters are consecutive pairs of characters.

-- 
David Clarke

Received on Tuesday, 15 February 2005 15:08:10 UTC