Profanity domains divide

Stop list moderation does not work, users find ways to circumvent restrictions

The head of the legal department of the Coordination Center of the national Internet domain domain Sergey Kopylov spoke about the changes that are planned to be made in the fall in the " Domain Name Registration Rules in the .ru and .рф zone ".

The domain name to the point holds 64 characters. Officials are concerned that various combinations of swear words, calls for suicide and much more can be added to this number of signs. To prevent this, in 2010 a list was compiled of 4000 obscene domains prohibited for registration, such as Sun-KOECHTO-v-chai.rf, glove box.rf and others. But practice has shown that users successfully circumvent restrictions using the wealth of the Russian language.

The current version of the rules in paragraph 4.4 provides possible reasons for refusing to register a domain.

4.4. The grounds for refusal of registration are:
(1) the presence of a domain name in the Register;
(2) the presence of a domain name in the list of reserved domain names;
(3) using as a domain name words that are contrary to the public interest, principles of humanity and morality (in particular, obscene words, inhumane appeals that offend human dignity or religious feelings).

That is, the “obscene content words” in the domain name are now grounds for refusal of registration. The problem is that this rule is not respected: in most cases, registration is automatic.

“Before launching the domain zone .РФ, we prepared a stop list of swear words, but domains containing obscene language still appeared. The creativity of a Russian person has no boundaries, - comments Andrei Kolesnikov, the former general director of the Coordination Center of the national Internet domain domain. - If the word sounds like a mat, but is not spelled as a mat, is this an obscene expression? Or a bad word is written with an error, is this a mate? All this is very controversial. ”

In other words, the Russian language is too rich.

Initially, in 2010, about 4,000 words that cannot be used in the domain name were added to the stop list. “For ethical reasons” this list was not published publicly, although some information became public: any domain could be checked for presence in the stop list.

In the first version of the stop list, quite strange words were found , such as sister.rf and bardach.rf. Soon, 88 words were excluded from the list of abusive ones, including “profursetka”, “backside”, “stools”, “podserdnik”, “glass cutter” and others.

It also turned out that the stop list is not perfect. For example, the Sun-KOECHTO-v-chai.rf domain was included in it , but the Sun-KOECHTO-in-coffee.rf domain was not included. In general, it is impossible to foresee all variants of obscene vocabulary.

“It is virtually impossible to pre-moderate,” Sergey Kopylov explained. - Since if we add an automated system for monitoring the registration of swear words, it will immediately cut off the word barber, as there is a word in the letter "x". Semantics cannot distinguish a bad word from a good one. ”

In 2013, Roskomnadzor dealt with the mat problem. He turned to the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences for an explanation of what was considered obscene abuse. According to the results of the study, it was decided that four words of the Russian language and derivatives from them are considered obscene:

1. obscene designation of the male genital organ;
2. obscene designation of the female genital organ;
3. obscene designation of the copulation process;
4. obscene designation of a woman of promiscuous behavior;

as well as all linguistic units formed from these words.

Based on this definition, the domain x ** chechenaya.rf (in the rhyme of the word “laundry”) was recently split, which redirected to the website of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. Anonymous registrars of this domain managed to bypass the stop list of the Coordination Center.

After changes to the "Domain Name Registration Rules in the .ru and .рф zone", the powers of organizations that can take measures for the separation of domains will be expanded. Now, Kaspersky Lab, Group-IB, the Regional Public Organization “Center for Internet Technologies” (ROCIT), Ru-Cert, and the “Safe Internet League” have such powers. After changes to the Rules, some of these organizations will receive the right to segregate obscene domains.