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Comment by thexa4 | Hacker News Reader

Too bad domain names are generally written in the 'wrong' order. These issues would have been preventable if domain names were written the following way: https://org.example.www/index.html

The domain referenced would have been: https://info.billing-update-jan02.uk.co.ee/ vs https://uk.co.ee/billing-update-jan-02

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I remember (very vaguely) reading into the debates around domain name sequence and being irritated that natural readability won out over scope order. Codified so deeply for so long that there''s no hope of ever changing it except in limited circumstances (Java class hierarchy for example).

Sigh.

I don't see how this is any more informative to your average layman?

Look at these 2:

    https://ee.co.uk.billing-update-jan02.info
    https://ee.co.uk/billing-update-jan02.info

There's just a single character difference. The layperson will think they mean the same thing. Now look at these 2:

    https://info.billing-update-jan02.uk.co.ee
    https://uk.co.ee/billing-update-jan02.info

There's a big difference there. People can easily see something is abnormal.

The attacker wouldn't use that one in that case though.

    https://uk.co.ee/billing-update-jan02.info
    https://uk.co.ee-billing-update-jan02/info

Would be more likely.

Perhaps an animation showing both would help.

You're right, the benefit isn't really about character differences. In both cases users need to be taught that '-' isn't a divider and '.' is a divider. The benefit is that it would be easier to teach people to start on the left then search right than it is to teach people to start at the leftmost / (but not the ones in the scheme) then search left.

It means that information to the left is always the important part. Right now you have to find the '/', evaluate the components leftwards, return to the '/' and evaluate components rightwards.

Given that finding the '/' is not always trivial (broken screen example in the article) and doing this requires you to think a lot of people won't do it.

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