Multi-language domain name service

An apparatus comprising:

• one or more processors;
• memory coupled to at least one of the one or more processors;
• and
• one or more network interfaces capable of receiving and/or sending DNS requests,
• wherein at least one of the one or more processors is designed or configured to detect a linguistic encoding type of the international domain name and append a suffix to the international domain name, which suffix represents an international branch of the Domain Name System.

A computer program product comprising:

• a machine readable medium on which is provided program instructions for preparing an international domain name for resolving, the program instructions comprising:
• (a) program code for detecting a linguistic encoding type of the international domain name;
• (b) program code for appending a suffix to the international domain name, which suffix represents an international branch of the Domain Name System;
• and
• (c) program code for submitting the international domain name to a resolver.

On a machine-readable medium, a linguistic encoding type mapping table that associates particular linguistic encoding types with particular digital sequences, the mapping table comprising a plurality of records, and each of the records comprising:

• a known digital sequence of a prespecified portion of a digitally represented domain name;
• and
• a linguistic encoding type associated with the known digital sequence,
• wherein at least two of the records specify linguistic encoding types that are different from one another.

An apparatus comprising:

• one or more processors;
• memory coupled to at least one or more processors;
• and
• one or more network interfaces capable of receiving a first DNS request including a domain name in a non-DNS encoding type and transmitting a DNS request with the domain name in a DNS encoding type that is compatible with the DNS protocol,
• wherein at least one of the one or more processors is designed or configured to
• (i) detect the non-DNS encoding type, as distinguished from other non-DNS encoding types, using a collection of known digital sequences for multiple encoding types, and
• (ii) convert the domain name in the non-DNS encoding type to that domain name in the DNS encoding type.