Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don't recognise, from a language you don't speak. It's a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.
Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) - the part of an address after the final "dot". The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.
The first Arabic domain is likely to be Egypt's and in Russia orders are already being taken for the country's hoped-for new TLD. The address HOBЫЙyЧеНЫЙ.pф - a rough translation of "newscientist" with the Cyrillic domain that stands for Russian Federation - can be registered today.
Though they will be invisible to many of today's users, these changes are a bellwether for the web's future. Today Latin-script languages predominate. But before long Chinese will overtake English as the most used language, and web use in other places with scripts of their own, such as India and Russia, is growing fast. The Middle East is spawning new users faster than any other region.
The image below, portraying links between blogs, represents just one facet of the ever-changing shape of the internet. More corrections like the arrival of non-Latin domain names are sure to come as the network underlying everyday life starts to properly live up to its "worldwide" monicker.
- Like what you've just read?
- Don't miss out on the latest content from New Scientist.
- Get New Scientist magazine delivered to your door, plus unlimited access to the entire content of New Scientist online.
- Subscribe now and save
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Have your say
Typo
Thu Dec 24 11:14:23 GMT 2009 by Dennis
http://blog.denniswilliamson.us
Shouldn't it be "polyglot"?
Maybe "polygot" means someone who has got a lot of stuff?
Typo
Thu Dec 24 22:22:10 GMT 2009 by Dennis
http://freetubetv.net
Yup it should be polyglot but I think they just copy + paste it from the newscientist article in the magazine so it's an editorial mistake that didn't get caught until now
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
You will now be able to construct what looks like a legitimate address, say mybank.com but by using foreign characters. Thus, to the user it appears to be the real thing, but is actually a fake.
An excellent point you make...Now we'll have to verify character encoding on a per-domain basis...perhaps as part of server certificates or something of the sort
Great News For Scammers
Thu Dec 24 22:59:57 GMT 2009 by Sam Vilain
http://sam.vilain.net/
This was raised as a concern by the IDN community in 2005 - search for "paypаl.com". Browsers these days make it quite obvious when something like that is happening. If you're on the latest Firefox, Chrome, Safari or IE you should see instead the punycode version (http://xn--paypl-7ve.com/) when hovering over the link and visiting the site.
Great News For Scammers
Thu Dec 24 17:31:09 GMT 2009 by Evan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_Domain_Names#ASCII_spoofing_concerns
It appears that web browsers are starting to work around the problem, by:
a) letting users configure what languages they are willing to accept in URLs (which will further fracture the internet along language boundaries), and
b) displying any "suspect" URLs in an expanded form, so disguised characters can be seen.
Unfortunately, some people will still be fooled
a good innovation for all but one thing I can think of.. wouldn't giving easier access to the web to some countries where terrorism is a problem allow these terrorist organisations to network easier and spread their evils more?
Luckily they'd only be able to spread their words of hate to people who already speak their language of terror
If this is sarcasm then take a bow - one giggled.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
Agree. That is a ridiculous thing to say.
The web is based on MATH, a universal language. It is only translated into other languages so layman can decipher (to an extent) the contents if the internet.
It just so happens that the internet was first translated from English to English. Now content is added and used from all languages and cultures. The second data from another language was added or translated into another language form the internet, English lost its monopoly.
That was years ago.
Dont be so obtuse Dan.
This comment breached our terms of use and has been removed.
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.
PRINT
SEND
