.su

Last updated

.su
DotSU domain logo.svg
Introduced19 September 1990
TLD type Country code top-level domain
StatusActive
Registry Russian Institute for Public Networks (РосНИИРОС)
Sponsor Russian Institute for Public Networks (РосНИИРОС)
Intended useEntities connected with the Soviet Union
Actual useMostly used by entities connected with post-Soviet states
Registered domains105,884 (7 December 2021) [1]
Registration restrictionsPassport required
StructureRegistrations are permitted directly at the second level
Documents Documents
Dispute policiesNone
DNSSEC yes
Registry website ripn.su

.su is an Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was designated for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on 19 September 1990. [2] Even though the Soviet Union itself was dissolved 15 months later, the .su top-level domain remains in use to the present day. It is administered by the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN, or RosNIIROS in Russian transcription). [3]

Contents

The .su ccTLD is known for usage by cybercriminals. [4] [5] [6]

History

After 1989 a set of new internet domains was created in Europe, including .pl (Poland), .cs (Czechoslovakia), .yu (Yugoslavia) and .dd (East Germany). Among them, there was also a domain for the USSR – .su. [7] Initially, before two-letter ccTLDs became standard, the Soviet Union was to receive a .ussr domain. The .su domain was proposed by the 19-year-old Finnish student Petri Ojala. [8] On 26 December 1991 the country was dissolved and its constituent republics gained independence, which should have caused the domain to begin a phase-out process, as happened with those of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. Until 1994 [7] there was no assigned top-level domain name for Russia. For this reason the country continued to use the Soviet domain. In 1994 the .ru domain was created, which was supposed to eventually replace the .su domain [7] (domains for the republics other than Russia were created at different times in the mid-nineties). The domain was supposed to be withdrawn by ICANN, but it was kept at the request of the Russian government and Internet users. [7]

In 2001, the managers of the domain stated that they would commence accepting new .su registrations, but it is unclear whether this action was compatible with ICANN policies. [9] ICANN has expressed intentions to terminate the .su domain and IANA states that the domain is being phased out, [3] [10] but lobbyists stated in September 2007 that they had started negotiations with ICANN on retaining the domain. [10] [9] In the first quarter of 2008, .su registrations increased by 45%. [9]

Usage

The domain was intended to be used by Soviet institutions and companies operating in the USSR. The dissolution of the Soviet Union meant that the new TLD was superseded by the new country TLDs of the former Soviet republics. Despite this, .su is still in use. Most of the .su domains are registered in Russia and the United States. [11] According to the RU-CENTER data from May 2010, there were over 93,500 registered domains with the .su TLD (there are over 2.8 million .ru domains). [12] Some organizations with roots in the former Soviet Union also still use this TLD. [6] The pro-Russian Ukrainian separatist group Donetsk People's Republic have also registered their domain with the TLD. [13] The .su domain also hosts white supremacist websites that have been deplatformed elsewhere, formerly including The Daily Stormer . [14]

The domain has been reported to host many cybercrime activities [15] [5] [4] due to the relaxed and outdated terms of use, along with staying out of focus (2% usage comparing to the primary .ru zone). [4] [16] Rules for timely suspension of malicious domains [16] have been in place since 2013 in response to the issue. [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.

A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.an</span> Internet country code top-level domain for the former Netherlands Antilles

.an was the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the former Netherlands Antilles. It was administered by the University of the Netherlands Antilles. The domain was phased out after the Netherlands Antilles were dissolved in 2010. As of November 2010 the .an domain remained live with over 800 domains registered under .an, including secondary levels. On 31 July 2015, use of the domain was discontinued.

Western Sahara is a disputed territory, and as such it has no country code top-level domain (ccTLD). .eh is reserved for this purpose, and will be assigned if the Western Sahara conflict results in an agreement between the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Morocco. IANA has not designated a ccTLD manager for the .eh domain.

.yu was the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) that was assigned to SFR Yugoslavia in 1989 and was mainly used by Serbia and Montenegro and its two successor states. After Montenegro and Serbia acquired separate .me and .rs domains in 2007, a transition period started, and the .yu domain finally expired in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.il</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Israel

.il is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of Israel, administered by the Israel Internet Association and managed by NIC - ISRAEL, which hosts the DNS root server and manages the Israeli Internet Exchange, that supports IPv4 and IPv6.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.co</span> Internet country-code top level domain for Colombia

.co is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Colombia.

A sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) is one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet, alongside country-code top-level domains (ccTLD) and generic top-level domains (gTLD).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.uz</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Uzbekistan

.uz is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Uzbekistan. Registry services were formerly operated by Euracom GmBH, but were later redelegated to UZINFOCOM. Registrations are taken directly at the second level, but the former registry also advertised the availability of registrations at the third level beneath co.uz and com.uz, and some domain names under other second-level names such as org.uz also exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.ru</span> Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain for Russia

.ru is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Russia introduced on 7 April 1994. The Russian alphabet internationalized country code is .рф.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.ir</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Iran

.ir is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Iran. It is managed by the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.gr</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Greece

.gr is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Greece. Registrations are processed via accredited registrars and domain names in Greek characters may also be registered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.na</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Namibia

.na is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Namibia corresponding to the two letter code from the ISO-3166 standard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.rs</span> Internet country code top-level domain for Serbia

.rs is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Serbia. The domain name registry that operates it is the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry (RNIDS). The letters rs stand for Republika Srbija/Република Србија.

A geographic top-level domain is any of an unofficial group of top-level domains in the Domain Name System of the Internet using the name of or invoking an association with a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic or cultural community. The IANA does not recognize these domains as their own group within the Root Zone Database, rather classifying them as generic top-level domains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.рф</span> Cyrillic Internet country code top-level domain for the Russian Federation

The domain name .рф is the Cyrillic country code top-level domain for the Russian Federation, in the Domain Name System of the Internet. In the Domain Name System it has the ASCII DNS name xn--p1ai. The domain accepts only Cyrillic subdomain applications, and is the first Cyrillic implementation of the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) system. The domain became operational on 13 May 2010. As of 2014 it is the most used internationalized country code top-level domain, with around 900,000 domain names.

An internationalized country code top-level domain is a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. IDN ccTLDs are specially encoded domain names that are displayed in an end user application, such as a web browser, in their language-native script or alphabet, such as the Arabic alphabet, or a non-alphabetic writing system, such as Chinese characters. IDN ccTLDs are an application of the internationalized domain name system to top-level Internet domains assigned to countries, or independent geographic regions.

The Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ — is the administrator of Top Level National Domains .RU and .PФ. It serves as the national registry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">.հայ</span> Internet internationalized country-code top level domain for Armenia

.հայ is an internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Armenia, designated for two-letter country code AM, intended for domain names in the Armenian language.

References

  1. ↑ "Общее число доменов | Домены России". statdom.ru. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  2. ↑ "IANA — .su Domain Delegation Data". iana.org. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  3. 1 2 .su Domain Delegation Data IANA
  4. 1 2 3 "Old Soviet Union domain name attracts cybercriminal interest". 31 May 2013. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  5. 1 2 Patel, Neel V. (December 2015). "The Bizarre Afterlife of .su, the Domain Name and Last Bastion of the USSR". Inverse. Retrieved 21 August 2022. the .su domain has attracted a lot of attention from cybercriminals looking for a safe haven to conduct operations
  6. 1 2 "Tons of Hackers are Hanging out in old Soviet Cyberspace". Gizmodo. June 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Marcin Kryska. "Domena internetowa SU" (in Polish). Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2012.
  8. ↑ Юбилей Рунета: 10 лет назад финн Петри Ойала зарегистрировал домен .su (in Russian). Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
  9. 1 2 3 Back in the USSR: Soviet Internet domain name resists death, Mansur Mirovalev, writing for Associated Press, 18 April 2008
  10. 1 2 Kilner, James (19 September 2007). "USSR still alive on Internet and won't go quietly". Reuters. Archived from the original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 5 December 2007.
  11. ↑ "Domena .su wciąż używana, chociaż ZSRR już nie ma" (in Polish). 21 September 2007. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
  12. ↑ "RU TLD: Registration and Delegation Statistics". Archived from the original on 27 May 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2010.
  13. ↑ "Donetsk People's Republic 'Government' Portal". Archived from the original on 18 April 2022. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  14. ↑ Ryan, Fergus. "Why Are Moscow and Beijing Happy to Host the U.S. Far-Right Online?". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 16 June 2021.
  15. ↑ Moscow, Associated Press in (31 May 2013). "Hack in the USSR: cybercriminals find haven in .su domain space". the Guardian. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
  16. 1 2 "Group-IB and Foundation for Internet Development sign an agreement to combat cyber threats in the .SU domain zone". Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  17. ↑ "Генеральная уборка в домене SU". info.info.nic.ru.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.