detecting "visually similar" strings

[David Garamond]

hi,

i want to develop a perl module to determine whether two strings are too "visually similar". for example, "ella" (double lowercase ell) and "e11a" (double 1 digit). so this is kind of Soundex but for the eyes. this checking is usable for avoiding "typo attacks" (like in the case of an attacker registering an email account/username on a forum and sending mails/postings to make people think he's someone else). i'm also wondering whether there's a more scalable algorithm to check against thousands of existing strings.

is there already a perl module on CPAN to do this? from a couple of quick searching, it doesn't seem to be. there's only String::Similarity, which is not exactly what i'm looking for.

PS: i'm sorry if [EMAIL PROTECTED] is not the appropriate place for asking these kinds of questions, and in that case could someone please direct me to the right one, but so far this list has been the best, healthiest environment for perl support questions.

--
dave


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