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Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

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Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#21

It took me a while to get the joke because I didn't recognize that white ghost on a white background. I take this as another example why these non-ascii urls are a bad idea for security.

It's not white, it's the blueish grey #E1E8ED. You need a better monitor :)

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#24

It took me a while to get the joke because I didn't recognize that white ghost on a white background. I take this as another example why these non-ascii urls are a bad idea for security.

It's not white, it's the blueish grey #E1E8ED. You need a better monitor :)

Very much depends on what browser/platform you're on. Many different emoji implementations out there.

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#26
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a bunch of different human writing systems. All of them are weird because they were invented by humans, most of them are very weird indeed because they were invented by humans a long time ago and then gradually mutated. The Latin system is the one you're using here. It's very popular. Most humans in the integrated tribes are somewhat familiar with it‡. It has twenty six "letters" and then twenty six more "c…

That’s unnecessarily patronizing.

Nothing patronising about it. I find it interesting, and educative.

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#27
post #4

I hate to be a spoilsport, but this is a good reminder that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack is still possible in some domains and with some browsers and CLI tools, although some of the easier tricks to detect have been mitigated.

if you run pihole or a local dnsmasq/unbound it should be possible to mitigate it by sinkholing any unicode domains, e.g. with dnsmasq (requires a patch https://github.com/spacedingo/dnsmasq-regexp_2.76 ) you can do this: address=/:xn--*:/0.0.0.0 does anyone know if something like this is possible with unbound?

But... What about legit unicode domains? I own a couple that I use for personal projects or file sharing.

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#28
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean Punycode, or this joke?

Punycode is the joke

Limiting dns names to 26 latin characters and the 10 arabic digits is the joke. From the top of my head I can't come up with a single language other than English that doesn't use additional letters (or at least additional modifiers on some letters). Punycode is the most sane solution to an insane situation.

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#29

This is using Punycode encoding, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji_domain .

Why is this even a thing?

Imagine if DNS consisted only of Arabic characters. Imagine how grumpy you'd be that you couldn't go to newyork.gov.us for your local government website, and instead had to go to نيويورك instead?

Assuming you can't read Arabic, how on earth would you even recognise that address, let alone remember how to type it.

Re: Add '127.0.0.1 xn–9q8h' to /etc/hosts gives you "localghost"

#30
post #19
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s unnecessarily patronizing.

I thought it was a well thought-out and clearly written answer to a question that comes across as dismissive.

Yes, I wrote it this dismissive because I already knew the answer and obviously don't agree with the whole idea but it's a good answer for people who don't know the relationship between emojis and character encodings.
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