Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters

( Original text by @edent )

Unicode contains a range of symbols which don’t get much use. For example, there are separate symbols for TradeMark — ™, Service Mark — ℠, and Prescriptions — ℞.

Nestling among the «Letterlike Symbols» are two curious entries. Both of these are single characters:

• Telephone symbol — ℡
• Numero Sign — №

What’s interesting is both .tel and .no are Top-Level-Domains (TLD) on the Domain Name System (DNS).

So my contact site — https://edent.tel/ — can be written as — https://edent.℡/

And the Norwegian domain name registry NORID can be accessed at https://www.norid.№/

Copy and paste those links — they work in any browser!

Is this limited to TLDs?

No! This works ANYWHERE in a domain name. Copy and paste these examples:

• Script https://ℰ????????ℳ????ℒℰ.????????ℳ/
• Math Bold https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Fraktur https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Math bold italic https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Math bold script https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Double struck https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Monospace https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Super script https://ᵉˣᵃᵐᵖˡᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ/
• Sub script https://ₑₓₐₘₚₗₑ.cₒₘ/ NB not all characters supported
• Math sans bold https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Math sans bold italic https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Math sans italic https://????????????????????????????.????????????/
• Math Squared https://????????????????????????????.????????????/ NB the dot must not be squared
• Circled https://ⓔⓧⓐⓜⓟⓛⓔ.ⓒⓞⓜ/ NB the dot must not be circled

There are a whole bunch more miscellaneous characters you can use:

How does this work?

Magic! Which is to say, I think it is the browser doing the conversion. DNS Servers don’t successfully reply to queries about .℡ domains.

The browser sees the .℡ and then follows the IDNA2008 process listed in RFC5895 to normalise it:

The ℡ entry is:

U+0054 is T, U+0045 is E, U+004C is L.

You can test this in Python using:

python -c 'import sys;print sys.argv[<span class="hljs-number">1</span>].decode(<span class="hljs-string">"utf-8"</span>).encode(<span class="hljs-string">"idna"</span>)' <span class="hljs-string">"℡"</span>

Does this work?

Yes! I asked people on Twitter whether they could access my website using a .℡ — and it appeared to work on every modern browser and operating system.

It even works on command line tools like 

 and 

.

It does fail in some circumstances:

What are the limitations?

Two main ones:

• Sites like Twitter and Facebook don’t recognise it as a valid URl and refuse to auto link it.
• Some command line tools like 
  dig

   and 

  host

   don’t understand it

dig edent.℡



; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> edent.℡

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NXDOMAIN, id: 55282

Is this useful?

Obviously yes. This may be the most important discovery of the decade. You get cool looking URls and get to save a couple of characters on specific domains, at the minor expense of working inconsistently.

It could also be used for evading URl filters.

Every modern browser supports these «fancy» domain names — but most websites won’t automatically link to them. So sharing on Facebook doesn’t work.

Where can it be used?

Here are the single characters which can be normalised down to a valid TLD. They’re mostly country codes, but there are a few interesting exceptions:

• ㏕

   — US Military

• ℡

   — .tel registry

• №

   — Norway

• ㍳

   — Australia

• ㍷

   — Dominica

• ㎀

   — Panama

• ㎁

   — Namibia

• ㎃

   — Morocco

• ㎊

   — French Polynesia

• ㎋

   — Norfolk Island

• ㎏

   — Kyrgyzstan

• ㎖

   — Mali

• ㎙

   — Federated States of Micronesia

• fi

   — Finland

• ㎜

   — Myanmar

• ㎝

   — Cameroon

• ㎞

   & 

  ㏎

   — Comoros

• ㎰

   — Palestine

• ㎳

   — Montserrat

• ㎷

   & 

  ㎹

   — Republic of Maldives.

• ㎺

   — Palau

• ㎽

   & 

  ㎿

   — Malawi

• ㏄

   — Cocos (Keeling) Islands

• ㏅

   — Democratic Republic of Congo

• ㏉

   — Guyana

• ㏗

   — Philippines

• ㏘

   — Saint Pierre and Miquelon

• ㏚

   — Puerto Rico

• ㏛

   — Suriname

• ㏜

   — El Salvador

• ℠

   — San Marino

• ™

   — Turkmenistan

• st

   & 

  ſt

   — São Tomé and Príncipe

• ㎇

   — Great Britain (Obsolete)

• ß

   — South Sudan (Not available)

• ㏌

   — India and Indiana (subdomain of .us)

• Ⅵ

   & 

  ⅵ

   — Virgin Islands and Virginia (subdomain of .us)

• fl

   — Florida (subdomain of .us)

• ㎚

   — New Mexico (subdomain of .us)

• ㎵

   — Nevada (subdomain of .us)

• ㍵

   — As part of .ovh

If you can find any more, please stick a comment in the box below.

You can always reach this blog post at:

https://????????????ₛᵖ????.ⓜ????????????/????????????/