IDN registration question
All, This isn't strictly about DNS in the RIPE region, and is perhaps 4000 years out of date, but I don't really know where to ask. I noticed that VeriSign supports IDN registration using Egyption hieroglyphs: https://www.verisign.com/assets/idn/idn-egyptian-hieroglyphs.html However, their own web site doesn't seem to allow me to register a name using that character set, calling it "temporarily unavailable". I tried a few registrars but I get things like "ð“ŽŸð“€€ contains invalid characters" or the like, some say things like "ÓŽß°Ó€.com is not available" (clearly their character handling needs some tweaking, since they're munging my requested domain name). Neither DuckDuckGo nor Google seemed to help me find a list of which registrars support which languages or character sets. Does anyone have any tips, or do I need to start my own registrar? I'm also happy to use another TLD, but the Egyptian ccTLD seems more concerned with Arabic than hieroglyphs. Cheers, -- Shane
Shane Kerr writes:
However, their own web site doesn't seem to allow me to register a name using that character set, calling it "temporarily unavailable".
I guess they are still digging up the market ...
Neither DuckDuckGo nor Google seemed to help me find a list of which registrars support which languages or character sets. Does anyone have any tips, or do I need to start my own registrar?
Yeah, just become ICANN accredited ...
I'm also happy to use another TLD, but the Egyptian ccTLD seems more concerned with Arabic than hieroglyphs.
According to the IANA language tables <https://www.iana.org/domains/idn-tables> Verisign allows hieroglyphs in .com, .net and .name). No other TLDs seem to have them. jaap
On 21 Apr 2016, at 15:26, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:
"ð“ŽŸð“€€
try registering the puny code version? xn--5o7dx5d.com Joao
João, At 2016-04-21 16:31:40 +0200 "João Damas" <joaolsd@gmail.com> wrote:
On 21 Apr 2016, at 15:26, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:
ð“ŽŸð“€€
try registering the puny code version? xn--5o7dx5d.com
Genius idea! Trying it... Hm... the VeriSign registration fails ("temporarily unavailable"). GoDaddy seems like they will accept it, but I am not confident that it will actually works: https://www.time-travellers.org/shane/domain-like-an-egyptian.png The .NL version they recommend isn't in punycode, and the "protected" versions of the domain suggested are also not in punycode. Apparently according to ICANN the only TLD which support this IDN variant is VeriSign, so I guess that makes sense. But then how can they offer to also register .ORG and .INFO, which are Afilias-managed and (presumably) won't allow those characters? Register.com tells me that it is unavailable. Domain.com tells me that I can get it for .COM, .CLUB, .NET, .US, .ORG, and .ME but that sadly it is already taken in .CO, .ONLINE, .SITE, .WEBSITE, and .BIZ. Ug. -- Shane
Try with a real register, like gandi.net (it understand what you are after) Joao
On 21 Apr 2016, at 16:51, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:
João,
At 2016-04-21 16:31:40 +0200 "João Damas" <joaolsd@gmail.com> wrote:
On 21 Apr 2016, at 15:26, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:
ð“ŽŸð“€€
try registering the puny code version? xn--5o7dx5d.com
Genius idea! Trying it...
Hm... the VeriSign registration fails ("temporarily unavailable").
GoDaddy seems like they will accept it, but I am not confident that it will actually works:
https://www.time-travellers.org/shane/domain-like-an-egyptian.png
The .NL version they recommend isn't in punycode, and the "protected" versions of the domain suggested are also not in punycode. Apparently according to ICANN the only TLD which support this IDN variant is VeriSign, so I guess that makes sense. But then how can they offer to also register .ORG and .INFO, which are Afilias-managed and (presumably) won't allow those characters?
Register.com tells me that it is unavailable.
Domain.com tells me that I can get it for .COM, .CLUB, .NET, .US, .ORG, and .ME but that sadly it is already taken in .CO, .ONLINE, .SITE, .WEBSITE, and .BIZ.
Ug.
-- Shane
Joao, tl;dr http://www.ð“ŽŸð“€€.net (a.k.a. http://www.xn--5o7dx5d.net/) works! You rock man. Details if anyone is interested: gandi.net understands the question, but it doesn't handle IDN perfectly. I needed to select the language of the domain name (which is weird and annoying, because computers are really good about looking things up in tables, so the site could trivially figure out which language the name was using). For some weird reason, Egyptian hieroglyphs are not a language on the list (although Coptic is, but that's a couple thousand years too modern for my purposes here). I can choose literally any language and then I can submit my request... so I was not at all confident that it would actually work. I picked Armenian or something near the top and it seemed to accept the order. But I decided to go for it, even though I was worried that it would choke. I submitted the order and had a short wait for some problem with the gandi.net service. It started exactly the minute I submitted my order, but hopefully that is a coincidence. Surely? :P It looks cleared up 10 minutes later, and the domain was registered! I went ahead and used the gandi.net servers, [a-c].dns.gandi.net, which were giving REFUSED to queries. Anyway, that eventually cleared up too. I tried updating the zone there to point to my web server, but it took ages to appear in the DNS. While waiting I set up my own DNS. This took about 15 minutes, by which time the gandi servers had updated but I made the switch to my own setup anyway. For some reason glue under the new domain didn't show up at the VeriSign gTLD DNS server, although the NS records in .NET were happily updated. I changed to using an out-of-bailiwick name for the name servers (same IP addresses) and everything is happy now. (I don't know whether to blame VeriSign or gandi for this - the beauty of the registry/registrar model!) I'm not super-impressed with gandi as a "real registry", although I fully recognize that what I just did here was a very weird case. I am glad that it worked at all. :) Finally,with a bit of Apache configuration we're partying like it's 1999... B.C.!!! w00t! Note that both Firefox and Chromium refuse to display the hieroglyphics in the URL bar. My guess is that they display any IDN that they don't understand as punycode in order to minimize semantic attacks (I think there is a hieroglyph for the sun that looks like a circle that I guess could be confused for zero, so maybe this makes sense? maybe?). I did need to install some fonts for everything to look correct: $ sudo apt install fonts-ancient-scripts As a final note, apparently Egyptian hieroglyphs can read left-to-right, right-to-left, or top-to-bottom. For the horizontal versions, the way that the characters are facing show you which way to read it (that's nice meta-data). I wonder if I need to register a separate domain for that version? Is there an ICANN policy on this? Surely this is an important item for some GNSO IDN working group... ;) Anyway thanks again. :) Cheers, -- Shane
Hi Shane,
Note that both Firefox and Chromium refuse to display the hieroglyphics in the URL bar. My guess is that they display any IDN that they don't understand as punycode in order to minimize semantic attacks (I think there is a hieroglyph for the sun that looks like a circle that I guess could be confused for zero, so maybe this makes sense? maybe?).
since I had to do with this in the past, I happen to know how Firefox works: https://wiki.mozilla.org/IDN_Display_Algorithm The summary -after recursive resolution of all nested document calls- is that hieroglyphs are candidate characters for exclusions from identifiers, according to the Unicode Consortium: http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr31/#Table_Candidate_Characters_for_Exclusio... But your animated gif got a smile in my face. All the best, Marcos
Marcos, At 2016-04-22 15:27:42 +0200 Marcos Sanz <sanz@denic.de> wrote:
Note that both Firefox and Chromium refuse to display the hieroglyphics in the URL bar. My guess is that they display any IDN that they don't understand as punycode in order to minimize semantic attacks (I think there is a hieroglyph for the sun that looks like a circle that I guess could be confused for zero, so maybe this makes sense? maybe?).
since I had to do with this in the past, I happen to know how Firefox works: https://wiki.mozilla.org/IDN_Display_Algorithm
The summary -after recursive resolution of all nested document calls- is that hieroglyphs are candidate characters for exclusions from identifiers, according to the Unicode Consortium: http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr31/#Table_Candidate_Characters_for_Exclusio...
Hm... interesting. Since these are candidate characters, one could argue for any given character set to be included. I guess VeriSign should be doing that since they are the only TLD that claims to support this character set, but apparently they don't care that much.
But your animated gif got a smile in my face.
It's just a link, Pirate Bay style. "No copyrighted material hosted here, blah blah blah..." ;) BTW, I had a look at the server logs and there were 45 unique IP, 24 from IPv6 hosts. Well done, RIPE DNS working group! Cheers, -- Shane
On 22.04.2016 15:27, Marcos Sanz wrote:
[...]
But your animated gif got a smile in my face.
... and made me digging for the song in the archives and dusting it off. Here you go: http://www.clipfish.de/musikvideos/video/4137018/the-bangles-walk-like-an-eg... - a blast from past! :-) Have a nice weekend, all - "ooo-eee-ooo": -C.
Maybe slightly OT, but... On 2016-04-21 22:12, Shane Kerr wrote:
Joao,
tl;dr http://www.ð“ŽŸð“€€.net (a.k.a. http://www.xn--5o7dx5d.net/) works! [...] I did need to install some fonts for everything to look correct:
$ sudo apt install fonts-ancient-scripts
For Ubuntu-style Linux it seems to be the package ttf-ancient-fonts. Works like a charem for me, than :-) You made my day, Wilfried
On 21 Apr 2016, at 15:51, Shane Kerr <shane@time-travellers.org> wrote:
try registering the puny code version? xn--5o7dx5d.com
Genius idea! Trying it...
Domain.com tells me that I can get it for .COM, .CLUB, .NET, .US, .ORG, and .ME but that sadly it is already taken in .CO, .ONLINE, .SITE, .WEBSITE, and .BIZ.
FWIW: shaun% dig xn--5o7dx5d.co ns | grep status ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 25390 shaun% dig xn--5o7dx5d.online ns | grep status ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 55541 shaun% dig xn--5o7dx5d.site ns | grep status ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 56114 shaun% dig xn--5o7dx5d.website ns | grep status ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 7099 shaun% dig xn--5o7dx5d.biz ns | grep status ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 64503 and: shaun% whois -h whois.nic.biz xn--5o7dx5d.biz Not found: xn--5o7dx5d.biz This suggests xn--5o7dx5d.biz isn’t registered or in some lock/expire/suspended state at the registry. I can’t be bothered checking the other TLDs. Trusting a registrar’s control panel is usually a bad idea. Perhaps the registrar is getting confused by the EPP responses from the registry and translates them into bogus messages about domain names being already taken. Or maybe the registrar’s screwing up the outgoing domainCreate/domainInfo EPP requests? I think you need to find another registrar.
participants (8)
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Carsten Schiefner -
Jaap Akkerhuis -
Jim Reid -
Joao Damas -
João Damas
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Marcos Sanz -
Shane Kerr -
Wilfried Woeber