VPSKeys is a freeware input method editor developed and distributed by the Vietnamese Professionals Society (VPS). One of the first input method editors for Vietnamese, it allows users to add accent marks to Vietnamese text on computers running Microsoft Windows. The first version of VPSKeys, supporting Windows 3.1, was released in 1993. The most recent version is 4.3, released in October 2007.
Features
VPSKeys supports the Telex, VISCII, VNI, and VIQR input methods, as well as a number of character encodings. One of its unique features is a "hook/tilde dictionary" (Tự Điển Hỏi Ngã), which provides spelling suggestions for distinguishing words with hỏi or ngã tones. This feature is helpful for speakers of dialects in which these two tones have merged.
VPS character encoding
The "VPS" character encoding for writing Vietnamese replaces several control characters, including several C0 control characters, with letters while including the ASCII graphical characters unmodified, a similar approach to VSCII-1 (TCVN1) and VISCII.
VPS Encoding2340 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B | C | D | E | F | |
0x | NUL | SOH | Ạ1EA0 | Ậ1EAC | Ặ1EB6 | Ẹ1EB8 | Ệ1EC6 | BEL | BS | HT | LF | VT | FF | CR | SO | SI |
1x | Ị1ECA | Ọ1ECC | Ộ1ED8 | Ợ1EE2 | Ụ1EE4 | Ự1EF0 | SYN | ETB | CAN | Ỵ1EF4 | SUB | ESC | Ẫ1EAA | Ữ1EEE | RS | US |
2x | SP | ! | " | # | $ | % | & | ' | ( | ) | * | + | , | - | . | / |
3x | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | : | ; | < | = | > | ? |
4x | @ | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O |
5x | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | [ | \ | ] | ^ | _ |
6x | ` | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o |
7x | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z | { | | | } | ~ | DEL |
8x | À00C0 | Ả1EA2 | Ã00C3 | Ấ1EA4 | Ầ1EA6 | Ẩ1EA8 | ọ1ECD | ỗ1ED7 | Ă0102 | ế1EBF | ề1EC1 | ể1EC3 | ệ1EC7 | Ắ1EAE | Ằ1EB0 | Ẳ1EB2 |
9x | Ế1EBE | ‘2018 | ’2019 | Ề1EC0 | Ể1EC2 | Ễ1EC4 | Ố1ED0 | Ồ1ED2 | Ổ1ED4 | Ỗ1ED6 | ý00FD | ỷ1EF7 | ỵ1EF5 | Ớ1EDA | Ờ1EDC | Ở1EDE |
Ax | NBSP | ắ1EAF | ằ1EB1 | ẳ1EB3 | ẵ1EB5 | ặ1EB7 | Ỡ1EE0 | ớ1EDB | Ù00D9 | ờ1EDD | ở1EDF | ỡ1EE1 | Ũ0168 | Ứ1EE8 | ợ1EE3 | Ừ1EEA |
Bx | ổ1ED5 | Ử1EEC | Ỳ1EF2 | Ỹ1EF8 | Í00CD | Ì00CC | ộ1ED9 | Ỉ1EC8 | Ĩ0128 | Ó00D3 | ử1EED | ữ1EEF | Ò00D2 | Ỏ1ECE | Õ00D5 | ự1EF1 |
Cx | ầ1EA7 | Á | Â | ấ1EA5 | ẩ1EA9 | ẫ1EAB | ậ1EAD | đ0111 | ẻ1EBB | É | Ê | ẹ1EB9 | ỉ1EC9 | ễ1EC5 | ị1ECB | ỹ1EF9 |
Dx | Ư01AF | Ủ1EE6 | ồ1ED3 | ố1ED1 | Ô | ỏ1ECF | ơ01A1 | È00C8 | ừ1EEB | ứ1EE9 | Ú | ũ0169 | ư01B0 | Ý | Ẻ1EBA | ß |
Ex | à | á | â | ã | ả1EA3 | ạ1EA1 | ă0103 | ç | è | é | ê | ẽ1EBD | ì | í | î | ĩ0129 |
Fx | Ẵ1EB4 | Đ0110 | ò | ó | ô | õ | ö | Ơ01A0 | ụ1EE5 | ù | ú | ủ1EE7 | ü | Ỷ1EF6 | Ẽ1EBC | ỳ1EF3 |
Trojan incident
In March 2010, Google5 and McAfee6 announced on their security blogs that they believe that hackers compromised the VPS website and replaced the program with a trojan. The trojan, which McAfee has code-named W32/VulcanBot, creates a botnet that could be used to launch distributed denial of service attacks on websites critical of the Vietnamese government's plan to mine bauxite in the country's Central Highlands.7 McAfee suspects that the authors of the trojan have ties to the Vietnamese government.8 However, Nguyễn Tử Quảng of Bách Khoa Internet Security (Bkis) called McAfee's accusation "somewhat premature".9 The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement calling Google's and McAfee's comments "groundless".10
VPS discovered a breach on their website on January 22, 2010, and restored the non-infected software then, but did not publicize it widely because they did not realize the serious nature of the matter.11
External links
References
VPSKeys homepage. ↩
"Unicode & Vietnamese Legacy Character Encodings". Vietnamese Unicode FAQs. http://vietunicode.sourceforge.net/charset/ ↩
"VPS Character Set (Vietnamese Professional Society)". Vietnamese Unicode FAQs. http://vietunicode.sourceforge.net/charset/vps.html ↩
Tang, Frank. "vps.ut (VPS to Unicode)". Mozilla Uconv. Netscape/Mozilla. https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/raw-file/FIREFOX_AURORA_31_BASE/intl/uconv/ucvlatin/vps.ut ↩
Neel Mehta (2010-03-30). "The Chilling Effects of Malware". Google Online Security Blog. Google LLC. Retrieved 2010-03-31. http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/03/chilling-effects-of-malware.html ↩
Kurtz, George (2010-03-30). "Vietnamese Speakers Targeted In Cyberattack". Security Insights Blog. McAfee. http://siblog.mcafee.com/cto/vietnamese-speakers-targeted-in-cyberattack/ ↩
Wassener, Bettina (2010-03-31). "Google Links Web Attacks to Vietnam Mine Dispute". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-03-31. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01vietnam.html ↩
Kurtz, George (2010-03-30). "Vietnamese Speakers Targeted In Cyberattack". Security Insights Blog. McAfee. http://siblog.mcafee.com/cto/vietnamese-speakers-targeted-in-cyberattack/ ↩
"Google cáo giác về 'tin tặc chính trị' VN". BBC Vietnamese (in Vietnamese). BBC. 2010-03-31. Retrieved 2010-04-01. https://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/2010/03/100331_google_vietnam.shtml ↩
Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2010-04-03). "The comments on malware targeted at Vietnamese computers users are groudless". Retrieved 2010-04-05. http://www.mofa.gov.vn/en/tt_baochi/pbnfn/ns100405180742#g4a4vTDi1KTX ↩
"Thư xin lỗi của HCGVN" (in Vietnamese). Vietnamese Professional Society. 2010-04-01. Archived from the original on 2016-03-10. Retrieved 2010-04-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20160310133612/http://vps.org/xinloi_vpskey.html ↩