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

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 requerdanos on Monday March 12 2018, @01:12AM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 12 2018, @01:12AM (#651155) Journal

    As i wrote above: match the current keyboard.

    On my desk is an en-us keyboard. In the keyboard drawer is an ru-ru keyboard. Both connected by the magic of USB. I switch among keyboard layouts with the scroll lock key--and the "current keyboard layout" is on a per-window basis, with the layout often switched when I want to type something, not "as soon as I start reading something."

    I only have two different keyboard layouts plugged in, but I have lots of free USB ports.

    No matter what keyboard I plug in or use, punycode is readable by no one.

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