<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">hi all,<div><br></div><div>i walked out of our last call with an action item to get cracking on the "educate Mikey about IDNs" project that Chris Wright (of the dotShavaka Registry (<a href="http://xn----1mcbc7cp0fnu.xn--mgbaam7a8h/index-en.php">http://xn----1mcbc7cp0fnu.xn--mgbaam7a8h/index-en.php</a>) dreamed up in Durban.</div><div><br></div><div>i'm happy to report that we finished it up last week and i've posted the result to our web site. i think it's great. i learned a *lot* about IDNs and feel a lot more comfortable talking about them in a policy context. here's the link to the series:</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span><a href="http://www.ispcp.info/policy-resources/idns-a-brief-whirlwind-tour/">http://www.ispcp.info/policy-resources/idns-a-brief-whirlwind-tour/</a></div><div><br></div><div>and here's what is covered:</div><div><br></div><div><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p998xeew0yy/"><b>Session 1: Introduction to IDNs</b></a>
(24:49) – covers the basics of DNS, ASCII, Unicode, languages and
scripts. It focuses on how computers process domain names. After the
session, users will have a better understanding of the following
concepts: encoding systems, ASCII, case insensitivity of domain names,
Unicode, code point, and challenges of Unicode.</p><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p3jatonwqia/"><b>Session 2: Introduction to IDNA (Internationalized Domain Names for Applications)</b></a><b> </b>(14:40)<b> – </b>covers
the basics of the IDNA protocol. After the session, users will have a
better understanding of: what IDNA does, punycode encoding and decoding,
U-Labels and A-Labels.</p><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p9igpnizluj/"><b>Sessions 3: IDN Registrations and Registry/Registrar operations</b></a><b> </b>(25:36)<b> – </b>covers
the basics of registry and registrar operational practices that are
needed to support IDNs. After the session, users will have a better
understanding of what registries need to do to support IDNs, when/where
the registry/registrar interaction takes place.</p><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p1cynpdctp0/"><b>Session 4: Blocking Variants</b></a>
(15:02) – covers the basics of variants of IDNs and how a registry
could provision them in order to maintain the security of an IDN
namespace. It provides examples of variants, the security issues they
pose, challenges of supporting variants, and one registry’s practice to
handle variant blocking.</p><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p1ltokbuoza/"><b>Session 5: Activating Variants</b></a><b> </b>(16:46)
– covers the basics of blocked vs active variants, what the challenges
of activating variants are from a registry’s perspective, and Shavaka
Registy’s approach to active variants.</p><p><a href="http://icann.adobeconnect.com/p131cp8akaa/"><b>Session 6: IDNs putting it all together</b></a>
(15:15) – a brief review of the topics covered in this series, an
overview of some of the challenges for IDN adoption and a brief
discussion of why IDNs matter.</p><p>Here’s a link to <a href="http://www.ispcp.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/IDN-Introduction.pdf">the slide deck</a> that Chris used during the conversation.</p></div><div><br></div><div>the whole series comes to something over 3 hours -- so i'd suggest taking it in a few bites rather than all at once. but most of the bites are pretty manageable -- about 15 minutes long. there are a couple 25 minute ones that cover topics that just didn't split up very well. </div><div><br></div><div>see what you think. all the credit for the good ideas belongs to Chris Wright and Steve Sheng. all the bad ideas are mine.</div><div><br></div><div>mikey<br><div apple-content-edited="true">
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