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Vint Cerf is making noises that IDN is a huge technical challenge:
“One of the most important aspects is for the user to make unambiguous references to every registered domain name.
“Historically this has been through a small subset of Latin characters.”
[…]
Mr Cerf said that in order for other scripts to be introduced into the domain name system, there needed to be rigorous testing to ensure that users could be certain they will reach their online destination no matter which script they used.
“Domain names are not general natural language expressions. They are simply identifiers,” he said. “They must be unique. Names registered today must be able to work into their distant future no matter what characters are added.”
He warned: “A miss-step could easily and permanently break the internet into non-interoperable components.”
I respect Cerf but this seems like fear-mongering (perhaps to counter international pressures particularly on ICANN, which is today controlled by the USA) rather than a technical argument. Uniqueness of names can be guaranteed in IDN, and talk of “permanent” break of the Internet into non-interoperable components, is a bit irresponsible. Also, phishing/spoofing attacks (the concern brought up above regarding the certainty of users in accessing sites) are not unique to IDN and have been addressed both before and also within IDN. Wikipedia offers a decent introduction to IDN/IDNA that addresses many of these points, and provides information on IDNA support in applications (e.g: Mozilla/Gecko).
The opinion of Viviane Reding of the EC, quoted in the same article, are, I think, a bit more on target:
Viviane Reding, the EC’s information society commissioner, said: “Bridging the digital divide is not just a matter of screens and cables.
“It is equally important to recognise the extent and value of cultural diversity within global village of the internet. That is why multilingualism is important.”
She said that IDN was “sometimes wrongly seen as technical issue”.
“There is legitimate political imperative,” she said. “Users want to be able to use Chinese ideograms and Arabic scripts.
“There is a real danger that a prolonged delay in the introduction of IDN could lead to fragmentation of the internet name space.”
I cannot but draw parallels to the (oft-mentioned) doomsday protestations of car manufacturers regarding everything from seat belts to better mileage.
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Not satisfied with my earlier attempt to use Frappr I created a very simple Google Maps API based map of our beloved representatives. Click on the image below to view it:
Keep checking the Crittr page for updates!
Update: I have created a blog category called “Crittr” (see sidebar menu on the right). You can now visit that category to see updates to the Crittr map. You can even subscribe to its RSS feed!
URL for category: http://platosbeard.org/tag/politics/crittr/
URL for feed: http://platosbeard.org/tag/politics/crittr/feed/ or feed://platosbeard.org/tag/politics/crittr/feed/
This was so harrowing an experience that I thought I would document it here for those who may be searching for solutions to this problem. My own searches yielded no results which could just mean that this problem was peculiar to me (and was caused by some meddling on my part!). Keep in mind the usual warnings. Now on to my experience…
I have Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Panther) on my PowerPC laptop and decided (for reasons not worth going into here) to install the latest version (9.0) of the Adobe/Macromedia Flash Player. The player can be downloaded at this page on Adobe.
The problems start right away. The correct option for my platform is Option 2 (PowerPC-based Macs) on the above page. However, there are two links under that section. One is an image with a downward pointing arrow (to signify “download” I presume) and the other is the text “Download .dmg file”. Problem: they point to different binaries! One (the arrow) points to a 7.0 binary (a Mac Classic one, I think) while the DMG link points to the right binary (9.0.x.x). There is a star next to the “Download .dmg file” link, but it seems to point to nowhere.
Fortunately, I did download the 9.0.x.x DMG. The install went well, but when I relaunched Firefox and Safari, the former displayed a blank box where flash content would be, while the latter displayed an error intimating that the Flash player plugin could not be loaded. A look at the console log showed that a necessary file was absent in /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin.
Next step: the usual uninstall/reinstall attempt. I downloaded the uninstaller from Adobe… well, there are two uninstallers linked to in two separate pages. The first one froze my computer requiring a hard reboot (probably my impatience after waiting for 10 minutes is somewhat to blame). The second did the trick and carried out the uninstall. A re-install however made no difference.
Time to get dangerous: I carried out one more uninstall, followed by removing all the flash related files and folders in the above-mentioned plugins directory. An attempt to re-install produced a Permission Denied error. I have seen that one before in a different context! Onwards to the Disk Utility to select my main disk and run Repair Permissions on it.
That did the trick. Re-installing from the 9.0.x.x DMG brought Flash back to life on both Safari and Firefox.
The Rwandan government has alleged since 1994 that French soldiers trained and armed some of the Hutus that carried out the massacre, and also allowed Hutu extremists to enter camps set up to protect Tutsis.
(tags: news)
NYT gives examples of Leiberman’s self-serving shifting positions on Iraq.
(tags: 9/11 dangerous-idiots iraq hypocrisy)
A senior US state department official earlier said that the US has shown "arrogance and stupidity" in Iraq.
Time magazine is reporting that Rep. Jane Harman, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, is under investigation for her ties to the Israel lobby
Republican nominee, Kenneth Blackwell, who is also the Ohio secretary of state, could rule that his opponent is ineligible to run because of a technicality.
(tags: banana-republic elections)
Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told a press conference the omission was because the timing was "a little bit tight" for publication. She said she anticipated the war being dealt with more fully in next year’s report.
But the authors did find sufficient time to include criticism of the Lebanese-based guerrilla group Hizbullah, and one of its backers, Syria, over attacks on Israel and to provide a figure for Israeli, but not Lebanese, casualties.
(tags: israel human-rights hypocrisy middle-east)
ITN reporter Terry Lloyd was unlawfully killed when he came under fire from American troops in Iraq, a coroner ruled today.
Andrew Walker, the assistant deputy coroner of Oxfordshire, said he would take steps to see if the soldiers responsible could be brought to justice.
(tags: iraq)
Thousands of people have been attending mass ceremonies in India at which hundreds of low-caste Hindus (Dalits) converted to Buddhism and Christianity.
The events in the central city of Nagpur are part of a protest against the injustices of India’s caste system.
(tags: india human-rights)
Mr. Ginco … had gone to Afghanistan in 2000 after running away from his strict Muslim father. He was soon imprisoned by the Taliban, and tortured by operatives of Al Qaeda until, he said, he falsely confessed to being a spy for Israel and the United States.
But rather than help Mr. Ginco return home, American soldiers detained him again. Nearly five years later, he remains in the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba…
(tags: human-rights terrorism)
A decade after competition was introduced in their industries, long-distance phone rates had fallen by half, air fares by more than a fourth and trucking rates by a fourth. But a decade after the federal government opened the business of generating electricity to competition, the market has produced no such decline.
(tags: corruption neolib politics right-nuttery)
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