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Web Browsers and International Domain Names

posted by martyb on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the söylêntnéws.org dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Brian Krebs writes on how browsers choose to display IDN. The issue here is of course spoofing valid URLs with visually similar letters. You probably would notice the lame attempt in the department line but some of the international characters are very similar or indeed identical. Depending on your personal preferences it might be a good idea to use punycode instead. Could save you a headache later.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/look-alike-domains-and-visual-confusion/

Here are some of the applicable RFCs:

  • RFC 3490 - Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)
  • RFC 3491 - Nameprep: A Stringprep Profile for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)
  • RFC 3492 - Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)
  • RFC 3986 - Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax
  • RFC 4690 - Review and Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)
  • RFC 5890 - Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Definitions and Document Framework
  • RFC 5891 - Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA): Protocol
  • RFC 5892 - The Unicode Code Points and Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA)
  • RFC 5893 - Right-to-Left Scripts for Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA)
  • RFC 5894 - Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Background, Explanation, and Rationale

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:50PM (2 children)

    by driverless (4770) on Sunday March 11 2018, @10:50PM (#651103)

    Not being able to read the domain name (punycode prevents this) but rather being shown a mathematically coded representation

    I've always felt that punycode should be called wtfcode, because, WTF? It has exactly the problem you mention, is incredibly complex to process, the code to do so is probably prone to all sorts of vulns because of its complexity, and all it's doing is taking something that's a problem and turning it into an even worse problem.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by coolgopher on Monday March 12 2018, @01:02AM (1 child)

    by coolgopher (1157) on Monday March 12 2018, @01:02AM (#651151)

    Sounds like its true name then is XML... ;)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @04:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 12 2018, @04:01AM (#651193)

      XML is like violence...