Re: [idn] case preservation

["ben" <ben@cc-www.com>]

>
> Already today, people can register domainnames with characters which
look
> "similar" like 'o' and 0, or '1' and 'l'. I.e. this is not a new
>problem.

I have been discussing my Supreme CDN system offline and have come to
the conclusion that it will *never* become a standard because it is
simply not interoperable with existing systems.  But as I have said,
that is okay as I believe all along that all the other CDN systems
(although not as perfect as mine) are absolutely 100% fine exactly the
way they are.

Offline, I have gotten less then pleasant remarks about why "some
people are trying to cause trouble/delay the progress/make things more
difficult then they really are/etc, etc."  Those remarks are made
*not* because of a lack of respect for people's contribution to this
WG but simply because of a lack of understanding of the Chinese
culture and why TC<->SC is so important- which can lead to fustrations
that are fully understandable.  Although we may never come up with a
solution that will be agreed upon by the majority of this WG, the fact
remains that TC<->SC is of paramount importance to the users of
CDNs... and the above 'O', '0','1','l' issue just gave me a good idea
on how to explain why it is so (not sure if this analogy had ever been
made before, but it shouldn't hurt to repeat it.)

At first, the '1','l' may not seem like a good analogy for TC<->SC
conversion because we definitely do *not* want to map 'l' with '1'.
However, the confusion of '1' and 'l' does illustrate why TC<->SC is
so important.  For example, when a person is given 'l.TLD', he can
easy type in '1.TLD' instead and have absolutely no idea why he cannot
reach the intended website.  In English the chance of such a confusion
is only limited to a few cases (such as '0' and '1') where as for
Chinese, *every single* Chinese character poises the opportunity for
such confusion.  Remember, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese
are indistinguishable to many users of CDNs of certain
backgroud/education/location/culture.  (Given certain Chinese
characters, even someone as educated in Chinese as I, cannot tell you
whether it is traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese.)

Thanks
Ben Chan