Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project aptld meeting, Dubai Jun 3-6 2007

• Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project

• APTLD Meeting, Dubai Jun 3-6 2007

• Abdulaziz Al-Zoman

• SaudiNIC - CITC

Agenda

• Introduction

• What is the problem?
• Internet in the Arab World
• Arabic Language Characteristics

• Arabic Domain Names

• Levels of an ADN Solution
• Contribution Methodology
• What has been done so far?
• What is remaining?
• Testing Projects

Introduction: About SaudiNIC

• administering the domain name space under (.sa) since 1995.

• operated by Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) … governmental org.

• coordinating with regional and international bodies in order to present the local community needs

• leading the local community effort towards supporting Arabic language in DNS

Introduction: What is the problem?

• Current ASCII-based DNs are incapable of representing Arabic characters

• Difficulty to reach Arabic sites using English DNs (pronunciation & spelling problems)

• Full Arabic DNs will encourage Arab users to widely use the Internet

Introduction: Internet in the Arab World

• Statistics

• Population of Arab world: 275 B (5% of world population)
• Arab Internet users represent 0.9 % of world users
• Less than 10% who can speak English in the Arab world

• Obstacles facing Internet use

• Low level of telecommunication infrastructure
• Lack of adequate regulations
• High cost
• Computer Illiteracy
• Language barrier
• Contents
• Tools and applications
• Domain names

Introduction: Why do we need ADN ?

• Arabic language differs from Latin-based languages

• Some proposed solutions, e.g. (ICANN IDN): mixing two scripts : نطاق.com.sa

• Dose not solve the problem since the user will have to write in two different languages (left-to-right and right-to-left)

Introduction: Arabic Language Characteristics

• Consists of 28 characters.

• Writing direction from Right-to-Left.

• Diacritics are used for pronunciations which lead to different meanings as well

• Two sets of numerals are used (Arabic and Arabic-Indic)

• 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
• 0، 1، 2، 3، 4، 5، 6، 7، 8، 9

• Abbreviation is not common

• …

Contribution Methodology

ADN: Solution Levels

ADN: What has been done so far?

ADN: What is remaining?

• To define the accepted Arabic character set to be used for writing Arabic domain names

ADN: What is remaining?

• To define the accepted Arabic character set to be used for writing Arabic domain names

Groups

• MINC: Multilingual Internet Names Consortium, 2000

• Arabic Working Group

• AINC: Arab Internet Names Consortium, April 2001

• Founder and member of the board
• Chairman of the Linguistic Committee

• ADNTF: Arabic Domain Name Task Force, Q2/2003

• Formed under the auspices of ESCWA (UN)
• Issuing an RFC for supporting the Arabic language in domain names with the cooperation of MINC

• GCC ccTLDs Group:

• Formed under the auspices of ITC committee of GCC
• GCC Arabic domain name pilot project

• Arab Team for Arabic Domain Names:

• Formed under the auspices of Arab League
• Arabic domain name pilot project

Testing Projects (1): At country-level

• Individually done be some Arab countries (ccTLDs)

• Arabic.English
• E.g., نطاق.com.sa
• Problem of mixing languages (left-to-right and right-to-left)

Testing Projects (2): GCC ADN Project

• March 2004:

• During the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ccTLDs group meeting on 7 March 2004,
• “A Technical Proposal for Implementing Arabic Domain names in the GCC Countries” was presented and accepted
• A technical taskforce was formed and assigned the task to implement the proposal within 6 months in three phases

Testing Projects (3): ADN Pilot Project

• May 2005: the 2nd meeting of the Working Group on Arabic Domain Names, Cairo.

• Recommendations:

• Extend the GCC Pilot Project for Arabic Domain Names to include all members of the Arab League (22 countries).
• Renamed it to be "Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project”.
• Under the auspices of the Arab League.

ADNPP: Introduction

• Implementing a test bed for Arabic domain names (ADN) in the Arab world.

• This will allow all Arab countries to early experience the use of Arabic domain names

• identify their needs
• agree on standards
• locate possible problems
• and develop required tools and policies

• The project is not commercial and had been initiated by a non profit organizations

ADNPP: Goals & objectives

• Establish and implement Arabic domain names.

• Increase the Internet use in the Arab world by making the Internet easier to use for native Arabic speakers.

• Gain experience and knowledge of using Arabic domain names and share it with the Internet community.

• Test the implantations of Arabic domain names based on the guidelines drafted by the “Arabic Team for Domain Names”.

• Develop necessary tools required for Arabic domain names and DNS.

ADNPP: Participants + Duration

• Participants

• All members of Arab League are invited to participate in this pilot project

• Duration

• Open . will continue as a test bed until the recognition of Arabic TLDs by concerned international bodies .

ADNPP: Deliverables

• Establish and activate the Steering and Technical Committees (done)

• Prepare and maintain a website for the project (done)

• www.arabic-domains.org

• Prepare the Arabic DNS root servers (done)

• Prepare the Arabic ccTLD servers for the participating countries and connect them with the Arabic root servers (done)

• Register and test Arabic domain names (in progress)

• Test and develop tools supporting the use of Arabic domain names (done and in progress)

• Participate in local and regional activities related to Arabic domain names (done)

ADNPP: Participants so far

• Participated Countries:

• United Arab Emirates
• Saudi Arabia
• Qatar
• Oman
• Palestine
• Egypt
• Tunisia
• Syria
• Jordan
• …

ADNPP: Root Servers

ADNPP: Policy Docs

• The Steering Committee produced a number of policy documents (so far):

• Project initiation Document
• Guidelines for an Arabic Domain Name System (Internet Draft)
• Terms and Conditions
• Participation Policy for Arabic ccTLD managers
• Guidelines for forming Arabic Domain Names

ADNPP: Tech Docs

• The Technical Committee produced a number of technical documents (so far):

• General Technical Introduction.
• How to Setup Arabic root server.
• How to Setup Arabic ccTLD server.
• How to Resolve Arabic Domain Names (ISPs).
• Requirements for Resolving Arabic Domains (End Users).

ADNPP: Last Participations

• Comments on ICANN IDN Guidelines V 2.0

• http://forum.icann.org/lists/idn-guidelines/msg00009.html

• Comments on deployment of internationalized top level domains (Chinese Domain Name Consortium CDNC )

• http://forum.icann.org/lists/idn-tld-comments/msg00003.html

• ICANN Meeting, Vancover, 30 NOV 2005

• http://www.arabic-domains.org/docs/ADNPP-Experiences-New.doc

• ICANN Meeting, Marrakech (Morocco), 26 Jun 2006

• Technical Presentation about the ADNPP

• UNESCO & ICANN & NTRA - Workshop about “Towards a global multilingual Internet”, Athens , 31 OCT 2006

• Technical Presentation about the ADNPP

• ICANN & UAENIC - IDN workshop, Dubai, 20 NOV 2006

• Technical Presentation about the ADNPP

• Monitoring and following up ADN new activities 

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Introduction

• SaudiNIC has opened the registration of Arabic domain names under (.السعودية) for test purposes on:

• 26/9/2005 (22/8/1426 H)

• Following the regulations of the Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project (www.arabic-domains.org)

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Accomplishments (1/2)

• Writing registration policies for Arabic domains (.السعودية).

• Publishing a section in SaudiNIC website about ADNs:

• http://www.nic.net.sa/adn.php

• Making announcements through the media regarding

• Arabic Domain Names Pilot Project
• The launching date for accepting Arabic domains requests under (.السعودية)

• Building forms and tools:

• Online form for submitting registration requests.
• Online form for instant modification.
• Whois service.
• Zone builder for (السعودية).
• ADN Registration System.
• Provide domain hosting choices for ADN.
• And many other generic tools …

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Accomplishments (2/2)

• IDN/ADN Converting Tool:

• Convert domain names form IDN to ASCII and vice versa.

• DNS checker for Arabic Domains:

• Check if an IDN domain name is hosted on any name servers.

• Host checker for Arabic Domains:

• Resolve IDN domains to the correspondent IP address and vice versa.

• Zone file editor for Arabic domains:

• Create and manage Arabic zone files easily using this zone editor.

• ADN plug-in “Arabic.Arabic” (عربي.عربي)

• Browser plug-in that enable users to reach fully Arabic domain names for any country participating in the ADN Project

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Policies and Regulations

• Governed by the policies and regulations of the ADNPP

• Utilize the .SA policies as a template for the Arabic domains

• Flat Registration under (السعودية)

• First come first serve (matching the policies)

• Domain names format (based on the ADNPP guidelines) :

• Length from 3 to 30 (approximate).
• Consists of the main 28 Arabic letters and their possible shapes.
• U0621-U063A + U0641-U064A
• Use Dash (-) as word separators.
• Domain should start with the entity type or activities
• وزارة – إدارة – مجموعة – شركة – مدرسة – مستشفى – نادي – شبكة
• Match spelling and grammar rules (manually).
• No registration for individuals (temporary).
• Not permitted:
• Mixing between languages and scripts.
• Kasheeda(التطويلة)
• Tashkeel (diacritica) and Shaddah
• Numbers (temporary)
• Character folding
• Combining many Arabic words without separator.

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Reg. Requirements & Procedure

• Registration Requirements:

• Having an active .sa domain name.
• Filling the online form.
• Sending a conformation letter to SaudiNIC.
• Confirm reading the policies!

• Registration Procedure:

• Reading and agreeing on SaudiNIC ADN Policies.
• Choosing appropriate Arabic domain names
• Guidelines that helps choosing Arabic domain name.
• Filling the online application form.

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Technical Issues

• Domain name hosting choices :

• URL forwarding/Redirecting (shared hosting)
• IP addressing (dedicated/IP-based hosting)
• Pointing to name servers (full DNS hosting)
• If ISP familiar with IDN/ADN

• Use UTF-8 for all data.

• Store the puny-code for the ADN.

SaudiNIC’s Experiences: Learned Lessons

• Users submit many requests for Arabic domains:

• With Arabic spelling Mistakes! (موأسسة)
• With English pronunciation in Arabic letters. (ورلد وايد)
• Popular and general names of future selling purposes. (إنترنت)

• Main Obstacles:

• Difficult to coordinate and make every ISP to join the project so users can reach ADN
• Some ISPs lack technical experiences to work with IDN
• MS browser IE (Ver. 6 or less) does not support IDN

Developing “Arabic.Arabic” Plug-in

• The Goal is to enable the Arabic user to reach Arabic domains:

• Independently from the ISP
• Independently from any service/connection type.

• The solution:

• Develop a browser plug-in that enable the user reaching Arabic domain names in easy and smart way.
• The plug-in should convert any Arabic domain name to a real & reachable domain name registered in the current DNS (e.g. xn--?????.adn.sa).

“Arabic.Arabic”: Plug-in tool

• browser plug-in tool that simulate the solution.

• approved by the ADNPP.

• Latest version is 1.1

• Supports Windows OS (2000, XP)
• Works with IE 6
• Auto update checking.
• Support the IDN punycode converting (IDNA)
• Interacts only with Arabic domain names (participant counties)
• Support the ADNPP non-plugin solution (old way)
• Change the Arabic domain name to real domain:
• موقع.السعودية  adn.sa.موقع xn--4gbrim.adn.sa 

• Future versions:

• Support other OS
• Support IE7 & Firefox
• Support Key word searching

Summary

• Having Arabic Domain Names is becoming an essential requirement to our community development and it is not a commodity!

• Imagine … e-government solutions using a foreign language!!

• Not having a full IDN root servers by itself is a big obstacle.

• Local community can help in defining what they need and how they can be implemented

• Reserve the development of Arabic language standards and tables to be done by Arabs derived from their respective community. [local empowerment]

Thanks

• شكرا

• xn--mgbti4d

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