Meziantou.Framework.Unicode 2.0.2

Meziantou.Framework.Unicode

This package provides Unicode helpers for normalizing confusable characters using the Unicode confusables table.

using Meziantou.Framework;

var input = "раураl"; // Uses Cyrillic letters that look like Latin
var normalized = Unicode.ReplaceConfusablesCharacters(input);

Console.WriteLine(normalized); // "paypal"

Detecting confusable strings

To decide whether two strings look alike, use the UTS #39 skeleton algorithm rather than comparing the output of ReplaceConfusablesCharacters:

Unicode.AreConfusable("paypal", "раураl"); // true  (Cyrillic look-alikes)
Unicode.AreConfusable("café", "café");     // true  (composed vs decomposed)
Unicode.AreConfusable("paypal", "example");     // false

Unicode.GetConfusableSkeleton(string) exposes the key itself, so it can be stored or indexed to find collisions across a set of names:

var skeleton = Unicode.GetConfusableSkeleton(userName);

The skeleton is a comparison key, not displayable text. Do not show it to users or store it in place of the original string.

These two methods require Unicode normalization and therefore ICU. In globalization-invariant mode (InvariantGlobalization=true) string.Normalize silently does nothing, so they throw PlatformNotSupportedException rather than return a result that would quietly fail to detect spoofing.

Detecting mixed-script text

A homograph attack usually shows up as a string that mixes writing systems. IsMixedScript implements the UTS #39 resolved-script-set rules:

Unicode.IsMixedScript("paypal");   // false - all Latin
Unicode.IsMixedScript("раураl");   // true  - Cyrillic letters with a Latin "l"
Unicode.IsMixedScript("日本語です"); // false - Japanese legitimately mixes Han and Hiragana
Unicode.IsMixedScript("user123");  // false - digits match any script

Script data is also exposed directly:

UnicodeScripts.GetScript(new Rune('A'));      // UnicodeScript.Latin
UnicodeScripts.GetScript(new Rune(0x0410));   // UnicodeScript.Cyrillic

This package also exposes Unicode character metadata from the Unicode data table:

var info = Unicode.GetCharacterInfo(new Rune('A'));
if (info is not null)
{
	Console.WriteLine(info.Value.Name); // "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A"
	Console.WriteLine(info.Value.Category); // UppercaseLetter
	Console.WriteLine(info.Value.BidiCategory); // LeftToRight
	Console.WriteLine(info.Value.Block); // BasicLatin
}