Russian Registry Revokes TorrentGalaxy’s Domain Name for Unknown Reasons * TorrentFreak

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Popular torrenting site TorrentGalaxy has lost control of its .su domain name after the Russian Institute of Public Networks revoked the Soviet TLD without notice. With no official explanation, the true motivation is unknown, but the operator of TorrentGalaxy believes that the action could be related to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The Soviet Union dissolved more than thirty years ago, but the former transcontinental state still has its own .su TLD.

The .su domain extension isn't exactly conventional. There are just over 100,000 active domains, and .su extensions are supposedly popular with cybercriminals.

Experts have cited outdated terms and lack of compliance as historical reasons for the cybercrime appeal. However, recent actions show that the Russian Institute of Public Networks, which maintains the .su domain, can certainly intervene.

TorrentGalaxy loses control over the .SU domain

A few days ago, the popular torrenting site TorrentGalaxy lost control of its .su domain name. The domain stopped resolving out of the blue, and upon further inspection, it was discovered that it was no longer delegated.

The Whois inquiry confirms that the domain status is listed as 'REGISTERED, NOT DELEGATED', without providing further details.

TorrentGalaxy TorrentFreak reports that their Russian registrar R01 has not sent any information about the problem and all questions remain unanswered. The torrent site has not received any news from the Russian Institute of Public Networks, the .su recordany.

“We have not received any notification of the disconnection. It still shows as active on our side. In fact, the strange EPP status in the whois of the domain and the domain that does not resolve anything has also been the only information for us”, explains the operator.

TorrentFreak contacted both the registry and the registrar, but we have not received a response. This means that the exact reason for the domain revocation is unknown.

government connection

Since the DNS zone was effectively removed, it appears that the registry was involved. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including court orders, voluntary actions, or government instructions.

Russia already requires internet providers and search engines to block hundreds of thousands of sites, for reasons including copyright infringement. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, these sorts of 'censorship' efforts have certainly not slowed down.

Many of these blocking efforts are managed by the Russian telecom regulator. Roskomnadzor. That is highly relevant as the government organization has reportedly controlled the .su domain zone. since 2020.

TorrentGalaxy's status page

At this point, we can only speculate on the reasons for the domain revocation. Copyright issues may very well play a role, but TorrentGalaxy suspects that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is a likely reason as well.

"Considering that the time the Ukraine conflict is getting worse, and after the registrar blocked it for almost two weeks, we can conclude that the site is now branded as Western propaganda by the Russian authorities," TorrentGalaxy informs us.

Ukraine Censorship or copyright enforcement?

TorrentGalaxy points out that there is a lot of content on the site that Russian authorities might find problematic. This includes documentaries covering topics like Navalny or the Ukraine conflict, which are effectively banned in Russia.

“Since no one is willing to give us a reason to suddenly take the domain offline, and given .su's well-known reputation for hosting pretty much anything but the worst, our falling victim to Russian censorship laws seems like the reasonable explanation.

TorrentGalaxy's explanation might make sense, but at the moment there is no confirmation. However, what this incident shows is that the Russian Institute of Public Networks can intervene. There are currently 107,070 .su domain names registered and 6,603 of these domains are not delegated.

After doing some more digging, we discovered that several other .su and .ru domains were recently revoked as well, including 123series.ru and politologia.ru.

Some of the revoked domains appear on the official Russian block lists. This means that they may have been banned by Roskomnadzor or the subject of a court order.

Interestingly, TorrentGalaxy.su does not appear to be blacklisted. However, Russia banned the main domain name TorrentGalaxy.to in 2020, after a court found it infringed copyright.