Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters (2018)

https://xn--69f31l4t57c0mag4b613h.xn--7uh4898msjaso/🆆🆃🅵/

16•n_plus_1_acc•1h ago

Comments

n_plus_1_acc•1h ago

Looks like HN broke the URL after submitting. Let's try again:

    https://ₛᵖ.ⓜ/

Here is the backup link:

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/11/domain-hacks-with-unusual-u...

zenexer•22m ago

That shows up as ₛᵖ.ⓜ, so a bunch of characters are missing.

HN seems to encode it as punycode when it shouldn’t; it skipped normalization.

huhtenberg•43m ago

Tangentially related - 20+ years ago I managed to register a π domain under one of the primary TLDs.

As in, the registration form was accepted and the fee was charged.

Then, few days after they emailed to say that "due to technical difficulties" the registration can be registered and they have no choice but to unregister it.

I was so close, damn amateurs.

waltbosz•27m ago

My brother had a friend who tried to register fuck.com in the early days of the Internet, around 1994, and the registrar was confused and wanted to know why he wanted to register it. This was when the Internet was mostly universities and a .com cost $100 to register.

jagged-chisel•7m ago

What was his response? Did they refuse to allow it?

Tepix•5m ago

I managed to register a one letter domain below a CC-tld, despite that country having a rule against it. Their signup form had two stages and the check was only on the first page... so all it took was changing a hidden form field.

I had it for a while until they started charging a lot for it (it was Turkmenistan).

waltbosz•31m ago

I click on the link on Android Firefox and nothing happens.

mmsc•18m ago

On Firefox, hover-over of the link doesn't show the URL in the bottom left of the browser.

ButlerianJihad•17m ago

Now, please present a list of these to your grandmother, and ask her which ones are phishing, and which are legitimately from the government.

Now, present the same list to an I.T. professional with the same questions. Perhaps make sure they are not carrying any weapons before you try.

This is just one reason why visual inspection of URLs and "hover over this link" haven't been useful defenses for a long time.

Norway makes shithouses great again

HackerTube: YouTube built from videos recommended by HN

A tiny Pacific country rolls out universal basic income

An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them

Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters (2018)

Brazilian Court Sanctions Lawyers for Prompt Injection in Court Filing

The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks

TCP Use-After-Free: CVE-2026-98432 / CVSS 9.8

Running a bootstrapped SaaS for 20 years with my brother

Memdoor: A team of 5 Qwen3.8-27B models beats Fable 5 on LiveCodeBench Hard

Leaking Secrets from Air-Gap Computers by Spelling Radio Signals from RAM (2024)

Show HN: Point your camera at a landscape to learn about its geology

Understanding Email Encryption

Pilot-wave hydrodynamics (Quantum phenomena in macroscopic hydrodynamic systems)

The Ocean 'Was the Color of Chocolate.' Mexico Declares War on Seaweed.

No AI, 52 min. Build all Linux Files utils in C by Hand [video]

Altoids Project

Radiation Map of the World

Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arecibo telescope in 2020

It's the memory latency, stupid

A brief history of just-in-time: forty years of JIT work, from 1960–2000

Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half

A 1580 Map Shows Why Data Visualization Is Never Neutral

Sam Altman says DRAM capacity should go to data centers, not personal computers

Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4

ChatGPT and Codex usage limits merging

Do the math: How we took over ChatGPT accounts

Surviving "The Graduate"

Simple circuits can create complex behaviors

noyb win: French electronics retailer Fnac Darty fined €7M

Norway makes shithouses great again

HackerTube: YouTube built from videos recommended by HN

A tiny Pacific country rolls out universal basic income

An Italian farmer found some unknown seeds in his attic and planted them

Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters (2018)

Brazilian Court Sanctions Lawyers for Prompt Injection in Court Filing

The AI cost of JavaScript frameworks

TCP Use-After-Free: CVE-2026-98432 / CVSS 9.8

Running a bootstrapped SaaS for 20 years with my brother

Memdoor: A team of 5 Qwen3.8-27B models beats Fable 5 on LiveCodeBench Hard

Leaking Secrets from Air-Gap Computers by Spelling Radio Signals from RAM (2024)

Show HN: Point your camera at a landscape to learn about its geology

Understanding Email Encryption

Pilot-wave hydrodynamics (Quantum phenomena in macroscopic hydrodynamic systems)

The Ocean 'Was the Color of Chocolate.' Mexico Declares War on Seaweed.

No AI, 52 min. Build all Linux Files utils in C by Hand [video]

Altoids Project

Radiation Map of the World

Zinc creep in cable spelter sockets brought down the Arecibo telescope in 2020

It's the memory latency, stupid

A brief history of just-in-time: forty years of JIT work, from 1960–2000

Electrification Could Cut Global Energy Use in Half

A 1580 Map Shows Why Data Visualization Is Never Neutral

Sam Altman says DRAM capacity should go to data centers, not personal computers

Jepsen: ParticleDB 1.1.4

ChatGPT and Codex usage limits merging

Do the math: How we took over ChatGPT accounts

Surviving "The Graduate"

Simple circuits can create complex behaviors

noyb win: French electronics retailer Fnac Darty fined €7M

Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters (2018)

Comments