[UA-discuss] IDN Implementation Guidelines [RE: Re : And now about phishing...]

Fri Apr 21 14:11:37 UTC 2017

Edmon,

> it is hardly an issue statistically   

I am certainly in agreement in not living in a fact-free world.  So, I am collecting data on such sites.   I am in the process of setting up a server to monitor 24 x 7 with a homographic domain finder product that we have written. 

I can tell you from my initial testing that there are a surprising number.   Currently, they appear to be for domains which are known world-wide.

More as it happens...

Thanks,

Nalini Elkins
CEO and Founder
Inside Products, Inc.
www.insidethestack.com
(831) 659-8360

--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 4/21/17, Edmon Chung <edmon at registry.asia> wrote:

 Subject: [UA-discuss] IDN Implementation Guidelines [RE: Re : And now about	phishing...]
 To: "'Vittorio Bertola'" <vittorio.bertola at open-xchange.com>, ua-discuss at icann.org, "'Asmus Freytag'" <asmusf at ix.netcom.com>
 Date: Friday, April 21, 2017, 3:15 AM

 Starting a separate thread to focus on the IDN
 Implementation Guidelines Discussion.
  For the Draft IDN Guidelines you pointed to,
 please do submit your comments into the still open public
 comments period (recently extended):https://www.icann.org/public-comments/idn-guidelines-2017-03-03-en
  To the specific issue of wholescript
 confusables, there is a further explanation in point 17 why
 the current recommendation is a "may" rather than
 a "must"... But if we feel strongly it should move
 to a must, please do submit your comments in.
  As for our work at UASG, I feel that it is
 probably a good idea to collect the counter
 arguments.  I
 recall there was a phishing/security report a couple years
 ago that highlighted the issue and indicated that while this
 (used to be "paypal" example), is possible it is
 hardly an issue statistically.  Does anyone have that
 report/link?
  Edmon

    From:
 ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org
 [mailto:ua-discuss-bounces at icann.org] On Behalf Of
 Vittorio Bertola
 Sent: Friday, 21 April 2017 17:04 PM
 To: ua-discuss at icann.org; Asmus Freytag
 <asmusf at ix.netcom.com>
 Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Re : And now about
 phishing...  
  Il 21 aprile 2017 alle 0.52
 Asmus Freytag <asmusf at ix.netcom.com>
 ha scritto:

 If you think about it, the following recommendation at the
 end is anathema to "Universal
 acceptance":"Zheng is encouraging
 Firefox users to limit their exposure to the bug by going to
 the browser’s about:config settings and setting
 network.IDN_show_punycode to true. By doing this Firefox
 will always display IDN domains in its Punycode form,
 something that should make it easier to identify malicious
 domains, the researcher claims."If you do that, you
 implicitly assume that only the "non-IDN" links
 are "real", in other words, you assume an
 English-only environment. (When stuff is displayed as
 punicode, you usually can't tell what domain it is,
 except you can guess for some European ones with very few
 special characters, but you can't be sure unless the
 Unicode form is at least also displayed, which I think is
 not what that config change
 means).Hello,excuse me if I jump
 into a discussion having just joined the list, but this
 issue is really troubling me for at least two
 reasons.First, many news sources are now filling up
 with calls and guides for disabling IDNs in browsers
 altogether, which is a death call for universal acceptance.
 It all started with this horrible post by Wordfence's
 CEO, basically equating IDNs to an instrument conceived for
 phishing:https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2017/04/chrome-firefox-unicode-phishing/It
 would be really good if anyone knew him and could have a
 chat with him, maybe even convince him to help spreading a
 better view of the issue.Secondly, browser makers are
 now reacting in opposite ways:1) Microsoft's
 browser (AFAIK) will enable or disable the display of
 Unicode in the URL bar depending on the operating
 system's language;2) Google's browser, with a
 newly released patch, will not display Unicode IDNs in ASCII
 TLDs if the IDNs are whole-script confusables ( https://codereview.chromium.org/2683793010
 );3) Mozilla's browser will explicitly always
 display Unicode IDNs regardless of whether this may be used
 for phishing ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/IDN_Display_Algorithm_FAQ
 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332714
 ). However, multiple online sources are now advising people
 to use a Firefox configuration option that allows to disable
 the display of IDNs altogether.(Don't know about
 Apple, Opera and others.)As you see, this is going to
 hamper the usability of IDNs in URLs and, even worse, make
 it entirely unpredictable, depending on the user's
 browser choice.The only real solution to this is that
 all registries treat whole script confusables as variants,
 so that they cannot be registered to anyone different than
 the owner of the equivalent ASCII domain. Unicode TR-39
 allows to do this programmatically. However, I just checked
 the proposed draft IDN guidelines that are currently
 undergoing public consultation at ICANN:https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/draft-idn-guidelines-03mar17-en.pdfAt
 point 16, they say that the registry "may" do
 this, but that should really be a "must". If this
 does not happen, there will be more of these situations and
 the risk that all the Western world will then disable IDNs
 in URLs for good is quite significant. I think that
 this group could do several useful things:a) promote
 a better public understanding of the issue, countering the
 trend that "IDN URLs are for phishing";b)
 encourage browser makers to elaborate a common
 approach;c) push for ICANN and the registries to free
 the Internet from whole-script
 confusables.Regards,-- 

 Vittorio Bertola
 Research & Innovation Engineer Cell:+39 348 7015022Skype:in-skype-ox at bertola.euEmail:vittorio.bertola at open-xchange.com
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