Dear George and others,<div><br></div><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">The relevance of IDNs to Internet Governance are in the "<i>multilingualism</i>" policy category that was defined in the WGIG 2005 document. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">I was going through the archives and found your email. You may be interested in reading the Study Reports on the various variants, they are open for comments and submissions, see:</span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">I listened to certain speakers speak about <span style="background-color:rgb(84, 133, 189);color:rgb(255, 255, 255);background-repeat:initial initial">IDN</span> variants which are so very exciting and interesting. You can access and view their study reports via <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/" style="font-family: arial; font-size: small; ">http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/</a> The Cyrillic variant report is open for comments until 16th November, 2011. Other variant reports are also there (Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin etc). If you want to get submissions in and quick, now is the time! :)</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">It is so interesting to see how certain scripts are politically charged, the similarity in phonetics or confusingly similar script. Whilst IDNs have been around for some time, I am sensing that it will only accelerate in its prominence in the not too distant future.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">The existing ITU model has closed memberships and this is true even for the Dedicated Working Group on International Internet Related Public Policy issues. This is a </span><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; ">closed group</b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; "> I might add. Is there anyone on this list that is a member of this group I would be interested to ask some policy questions on the subject matter and we can discuss offlist.</span></div>
<div style="font-size:13px;background-color:rgb(255, 255, 255)">
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></span></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> I am on record for asking At Large whether there is some level of interface between ICANN and this Dedicated Working Group. This Dedicated Working Group was established under Resolution 75. Membership is only exclusive for member states and the current chair is Mr Majed Al Mazyed from Saudi Arabia. </span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">Resolution 133 deals from the ITU Plenipotentiary deals with the role of administrations of member states in the management of internationalized(</span><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">multilingual) domain names. [see </span><a href="http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/intgov/resoultions_2010/PP-10/RESOLUTION_133.pdf" style="font-family:arial, sans-serif;color:rgb(17, 65, 112)" target="_blank">http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/intgov/resoultions_2010/PP-10/RESOLUTION_133.pdf</a><span style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">] </span></div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">I should also state that the 2009 Council Resolution 1305 [which we are denied access unless you are a member state invited Member States to recognise the scope of the work of ITU on international Internet-related public policy matters.] I will say that the approach of the ITU to close discussions on internet policy and limit it to member states is worrying. 2012 will be a critical year within the ITU as they will be revising alot of resolutions and positions etc to "make it more relevant".</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">I am not in anyway criticising ITU and have <b><u>great respect</u></b> for the degree of capacity building and recognise the role that they play but I strongly disagree with the policy exclusionary development processes within the ITU. The ICC also publicly in 2005 issued a Statement to tell ITU about what it thought of ITU's role in the development of global internet policies and think that the statement would be available on the ICC website.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">There are some who have been vocal of wanting to see more efficient policy processes and are debating what enhanced cooperation.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><br>As civil society how can the voice of consumers be represented or at least other critical stakeholders within policy development space? I think that these are legitimate questions that require consideration.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif"><br></div><div style="font-family:arial, sans-serif">I would also be interested to learn from other individuals or organisations that deal with IDN other than the ITU Dedicated Working Group and ICANN. If you can point me to URLs, that would be great.</div>
</div>
<div><br></div><div>I am also aware of the Declaration of the Committee of Ministers on the management of the Internet protocol address resources in the public interest (see:<a href="https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1678299&Site=CM&BackColorInternet=C3C3C3&BackColorIntranet=EDB021&BackColorLogged=F5D383">https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1678299&Site=CM&BackColorInternet=C3C3C3&BackColorIntranet=EDB021&BackColorLogged=F5D383</a> )</div>
<div><br></div><div>Tobias Mahler who is on this list had raised issues with s.9 of this Declaration on another list.</div><div><br></div><div>It will be great to see all those working on these policies to share resources and information, so that at the end of the day, consumer interests and end users are protected.<i><br>
</i></div><div><br></div><div>I was wondering whether civil society or individual members would like to put in submissions, then they are at liberty to do so.</div><div><br></div><div>Best Regards,</div><div>Sala</div><div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 4:41 AM, George Todoroff <span dir="ltr"><george_todoroff@imap.cc></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Is really Bulgarian Cyrillic .бг (.bg) similar to other Latin ccTLDs?<br>
<br>
Bulgaria has proposed for an IDN ccTLD the string .бг (Cyrillic<br>
for .bg, or U+0431 U+0433), but the proposal was turned down by<br>
the ICANN DNS Stability panel in May 2010 without any arguments<br>
or an option for appeal.<br>
<br>
The proposed string is composed of two characters:<br>
U+0431 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BE (б) and<br>
U+0433 CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE (г)<br>
<br>
Reading the tables, provided with Unicode Technical Standard<br>
#39,<br>
(<a href="http://www.unicode.org/Public/security/revision-04/confusables.txt" target="_blank">http://www.unicode.org/Public/security/revision-04/confusables.txt</a>)<br>
I see that confusable characters are only:<br>
<br>
0431 ; 0036 ; SL # ( б → 6 ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER BE → DIGIT SIX<br>
#<br>
<br>
0433 ; 0072 ; ML # ( г → r ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER GHE → LATIN<br>
SMALL LETTER R #<br>
<br>
As a result, we see that the applied string .бг could be<br>
confused only with the string .6r, which does not exist.<br>
<br>
The Russian case<br>
<br>
Opponents to the Bulgarian proposal say that Russia first wanted<br>
to apply for .ру (Cyrillic for .ru), but then selected another<br>
one, because .ру was found to be confusingly similar with the<br>
Paraguayan ccTLD .py , and because of this, Bulgaria must be<br>
obedient and select another IDN string.<br>
<br>
Looking again at Unicode Technical Standard #39, I see that:<br>
<br>
0440 ; 0070 ; ML # ( р → p ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ER → LATIN<br>
SMALL LETTER P #<br>
<br>
0443 ; 0079 ; ML # ( у → y ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER U → LATIN<br>
SMALL LETTER Y #<br>
<br>
We have absolute similarity here! Very different than the<br>
Bulgarian case with 50% similarity.<br>
<br>
Russia selected and received the .рф (Cyrillic for .rf) string.<br>
Looking for a third time at Unicode Technical Standard #39, I<br>
see that:<br>
<br>
0440 ; 0070 ; MA # ( р → p ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER ER → LATIN<br>
SMALL LETTER P #<br>
<br>
0444 ; 0278 ; ML # ( ф → ɸ ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER EF → LATIN<br>
SMALL LETTER PHI#<br>
<br>
What do we have here? One similar character, and one not similar<br>
to a Latin basic character. So, how is this different from the<br>
Bulgarian case? Its the same! How the Russian string was<br>
approved, and the Bulgarian – not???<br>
<br>
<br>
The DNS Stability panel rankings<br>
<br>
[6] Both characters are visually identical to an ISO 646 Basic Version<br>
(ISO 646-BV) character.<br>
[5] One character is visually identical to, and one character is<br>
visually confusable with, an ISO 646-BV character.<br>
[4] Both characters are visually confusable with, but neither character<br>
is visually identical to, an ISO 646-BV character.<br>
[3] One character is visually distinct from, and one character is<br>
visually identical to, an ISO 646-BV character.<br>
[2] One character is visually distinct from, and one character is<br>
visually confusable with, an ISO 646-BV character.<br>
[1] Both characters are visually distinct from an ISO 646-BV character.<br>
<br>
The panel said that Bulgaria fails under [4] or [5], so the<br>
string is not accepted, because rank [4] or more is not good.<br>
<br>
But, from my findings here, the Bulgarian (as the Russian)<br>
strings fail under [2] or [3], and its perfectly fine to be<br>
approved.<br>
<br>
Security proposals<br>
<br>
As another participant in the public comment forum said, two<br>
security proposals must be implemented:<br>
<br>
“1. All names in the .бг (.bg) IDN ccTLD must be registered only<br>
with Cyrillic letters.”<br>
“2. All names in the .бг (.bg) IDN ccTLD must contain at least<br>
one letter, which can be visually distinguished from the Latin<br>
alphabet (one of the letters: б, г, д, ж, и, й, л, п, ф, ц, ч,<br>
ш, щ, ъ, ь, ю, я).” (“г“ may fail off this list, because of my<br>
findings.)<br>
<br>
Examples<br>
<br>
There must be really conservative people in the DNS Stability<br>
panel, who don`t like seeing domains like:<br>
- раурал.бг because people would confuse it with <a href="http://paypal.br" target="_blank">paypal.br</a><br>
Come on, раурал.бг and <a href="http://paypal.br" target="_blank">paypal.br</a> ? Compare with <a href="http://paypal.it" target="_blank">paypal.it</a> and<br>
<a href="http://paypal.lt" target="_blank">paypal.lt</a> ?<br>
<br>
Others are afraid of seeing:<br>
- руса.бг and <a href="http://pyca.br" target="_blank">pyca.br</a> (whatever this means in Brazilian Portuguese) -<br>
check the second security proposal. The first domain can`t exist.<br>
<br>
- - - - -<br>
<br>
Dear DNS Stability panel members, what is wrong here?<br>
Dear ICANN Board members, Bulgaria needs an appeal procedure!<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
George Todoroff<br>
--<br>
george_todoroff@imap.cc<br>
<br>
--<br>
<a href="http://www.fastmail.fm" target="_blank">http://www.fastmail.fm</a> - Send your email first class<br>
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Translate this email: <a href="http://translate.google.com/translate_t" target="_blank">http://translate.google.com/translate_t</a></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala</div>
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