Vladimir Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine inspired a global response. Musician protesting with music, artist with artpastry chef with cakesand cyclists by cycling. This raises questions about what internet policy nerds can do to demonstrate our horror and disdain for Russia’s Soviet-style imperialism.
The answer is simple: Destroy the last Soviet outpost – in cyberspace.
Putin is a big fan of the former Soviet empire. He describes its breakup as “The Greatest Geopolitical Disaster of the Century.” And he is acting, in Ukraine and in Russia’s “near abroad,” like a man determined to restore Soviet-era borders.
Nostalgia for the Soviet Union is on the moral level with Hitler’s longing for the Third Reich. However, against all odds, the Soviet Union survived. Not only does it continue to exist in the dreams of aging loyalists, it also lives on the internet.
The internet barely escaped the lab in 1990, when the Soviet Union was given .su as its country code, joining domains such as France’s .fr and the United Kingdom’s .uk. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union was dead.
But not its country code.
Thirty years later, the Soviet Union exists in the imagination of a former KGB officer now in the Kremlin — and on the internet, where you can still registerout domain like stin.su. As you might expect, the domain is a domain of nostalgia for fans of Communism and a favorite haunt for those who oppose a democratic and independent Ukraine and use .su domain to express their hopes for the future of Ukraine merged into the great Russia. Large .su users also include Spammers and other cybercriminalswho enjoy the actual lack of government oversight. Due to its lack of positive value (and the happy ending of Communist terror), the .su domain was included in the digital graveyard for a long time.
Why then does it still exist? The Internet Corporation for Designated Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the international organization that manages domain names, including country codes – has a policy of quickly removing country names once they are no longer available. in. ICANN dropped the Yugoslavian .yu and East German .dd, to name a few. But its attempt to withdraw .su was thwarted by a mixture of Putinist sentiments and commercial interests. A committee of country code managers from places like Saudi Arabia and Namibia (as well as Russia and China) slowed the move, claiming that a new, comprehensive retirement policy Country codes are under development. Meanwhile, at 20 to 30 dollars a year.su registrations bring in several million dollars in annual revenue for ICANN, and ICANN registrations, the revenue is lost when the domain disappears.
That’s not reason enough to keep the specter of the Soviet Union alive on the internet. It was possibly the most murderous regime in history, and today war crimes are being recorded all over Ukraine.
Of course, there is a good chance that Putin will take his own death. And, really, what better reason to speed up the process?
ICANN and its board of directors should act now, not later many more years of borders and fences. And if ICANN stops, there are plenty of other ways to achieve the same goal. The Biden administration could sanction entire domains, ban dealing with the domain registrar and its users, the way it has done with other Russian internet shops. Google and Mozilla may simply decide not to recognize addresses ending in .su. Most of those solutions would be more drastic than ICANN’s action, but the fear of extreme measures could be what is needed to get ICANN to act.
Either way, the destination is clear: The dustbin of history is calling for .su.
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