CircleID

Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) might be a slightly "hot" topic at the moment following on from ICANN's launch of the IDN country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) program recently.

However, IDNs are NOT a new topic.

Far from it.

They've been around for quite some time.

Unfortunately neither The Times Online or Mashable seem to have done any homework. Considering the amount of content available on IDNs that has been researched and actually proven — you know, factual information, it's pretty amazing that not one, but two respected online publications manage to get something so completely wrong.

Andrew from Domain Name Wire explains very succinctly why both Mashable and The Times are wrong.

As anyone who actually bothers doing a bit of research into IDNs could tell you, the IDN projects have been discussed at length and from every imaginable angle.

Do the authors of those two articles honestly think that the DNS community hadn't thought about potential phishing problems?

Do they think we're all idiots?

It's not as if we ever have to deal with phishing or any other DNS related attacks is it?

We're just misinformed observers, like them, aren't we?

And here I was thinking that The Times was a quality publication…

Oh well, back to the drawing board I guess.

By Michele Neylon, MD of Blacknight Solutions. Visit the blog maintained by Michele Neylon here.

Related topics: Domain Names, ICANN, Multilinguism, Security, Top-Level Domains