South Sudan: .SS ccTLD Approval Opens Up New Opportunities for Hackers

With the recent approval of the .SS ccTLD for South Sudan comes great new opportunities for Domain Hackers.  “Domain Hacks” are domains for which the name plus the extension can be read as a whole word or a sentence.  With the introduction of the new TLD, many sweet and short words can be generated as a ‘hack’ and registered either for development or investment purposes.  Hacked Domains have been a trend by many popular sites and companies.
Here are some great domains:

• Pre.ss
• Me.ss
• Dre.ss
• Ki.ss
• Gla.ss
• Acce.ss
• Succe.ss
• Pa.ss
• Cla.ss

It will be less likely that the TLD sponsor will accept 1 letter registrations, a decision that will make hacks using the letter “A” impossible.

 Article courtesy

"Virtual Oil": South Sudan Sitting on a Domain gold mine

South Sudan is a relatively new nation with a non-existent internet infrastructure but it has recently acquired one internet resource that every web user in world is coveting, its ccTLD or country code Top Level Domain. The ISO recently assigned .SS as the 3166-1 country code South Sudan which means IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority will assign the .SS code to South Sudan for use as its country code Top Level Domain name.

Already there is a buzz in the cyberspace on the availability of these nifty new domains. Web users are already buzzing about future .ss domains with some hoping that the .SS namespace will be opened to the global internet community and not restricted like that of most African nations. African nations exercise very stringent regulation along with exorbitant costs in the management of ccTLDs which has resulted in very pitiful registration numbers. Countries like Guinea have less than 100 domains registered in the .GN ccTLD namespace.

The South Sudan internet penetration rate cannot sustain a viable registry and an online internet economy in the SS namespace and therefore the .SS registry cannot rely on S.Sudanese users alone. It would be wise if they looked outward towards the global internet community that's currently salivating for the .ss domain names and open up the namespace to global internet users. Of course the SS registry can reserve tens of thousands domain names of social and political relevance to the country's society, politics and history for its own use and then leave the rest of the "virtual oil" to the global internet community. The country's  registry can also reserve the best premium domain names which the imaginative Twitter users have been suggesting to me and sell them for a killer price. Names like a.ss bli.ss swi.ss he.ss che.ss could fetch thousands of dollars which can be reinvested into the development of the internet infrastructure in South Sudan.

It's upto the South Sudanese to learn from the mistakes of the other African countries and convert this new virtual oil into a leading source of foreign exchange. With the right registry management and the right pricing, .SS could fetch upwards of $5 million per annum from auction of premium names and domain name registration; cash I believe, South Sudan needs very urgently.

South Sudan gets .SS Internet Domain Name

.SS will after all become a reality. The Republic of Southern Sudan has been assigned .SS (alpha-2) for the Internet domain code, and "SSD" for the ISO alpha-3 numeric code.
  
I woke up this morning to the triumphant announcement from the country's Senior Advisor in the Ministry of Telecom and Postal Services Dr Shem J Ochuodho:

We got it! Dot-SS (alpha-2) for the Internet domain code, and "SSD" for the ISO alpha-3 numeric code. Thanks to all who made this a reality one way or other.

The issue of .SS had generated lots of debate that even overshadowed the significance of the country's independence. Foreign Policy Magazine focused on the .SS domain name in its coverage of the South Sudanese independence and so did most of the global media, showing the sensationalism of today's journalism. As it turned out, the experts know better, and now .SS joins the global ccTLD community.


We hope that this will be properly managed for the benefit for the citizens of Southern Sudan and the global internet community as whole. Let us all welcome .SS to the internet!

Southern Sudan in Search of a Domain Name

The charismatic leader of the rebellion in the Southern Sudan, the late John Garang, campaigned for a united Sudan from north to south. Six years after his death, the largely Christian south is separated from the Muslim north. Last Saturday, July 9, Southern Sudan declared its independence and became the 193rd State of the planet. A historic day. 

Everything has to be constructed from nothing in this new state without institutions or infrastructure and a human development indexrank of 154 out of 169.  Among the many challenges facing Juba: Internet. Southern Sudan is faced with a puzzle to establish a country code top level domain(ccTLD). In the 21st century, the state has a territory, a government and population, but also a domain name. Each territory has its own unique two letter extension that is  assigned by ISO. Example: ". ng" for Nigeria ".cv" for the Ivory Coast ".za" for South Africa; ". fr" for France ... The problem is significant for South Sudan is struggling find an extension that is both available and suitable ....
"We want our domain name to be '.ss' for 'South Sudan', but people are telling us 'SS' has an association in Europe with Nazis. We have applied for it anyway. "Stephen Lugga, the new country's undersecretary in the Ministry of Telecommunications and Postal Services told Reuters

But southern Sudan has little choice because the various options of two-letter extensions are rare and that the new State can not use the ". sd" reserved for the Republic of Sudan. The extension ". rs" for Republic of South Sudan is already used by Serbia ". sn" is in use in Senegal while ". su" is still attributed to the defunct Soviet Union. As a result ". ss" appears to be the only choice possible for Juba. But it is the United Nations that will slice and add the Southern Sudan on the list of Member States. Then, the International Standards Organization (ISO), based in Geneva, will award the "country code" (ISO 3166-1) of two or three letters. These codes are generally used as a domain name.

Another possible far fetched option would be to file an application for a generic extension to ICANN based on ICANN's new generic Top Level Domain name program. Since June 20, it is now possible for brands, communities, regions and cities to apply for a generic extension of your choice. The current generic extensions include .com, .org . info .biz .asia .travel .aero(there are 22 in total) but with new program recently approved in Singapore it will be possible to apply for .eco .green .shop .africa .paris .london .nairobi .juba .canon .apple for the Apple brand. Thus, the Government of Southern Sudan may apply for extensions such as . juba (write English in the capital Juba) or . southsudan. or even .rss for the Republic of South Sudan although I guarantee that .rss will be a tough nut to crack. Applications for these new top level domains begin from January all the way to April and will cost South Sudan a minimum of $185,000 and the names will only be available in 2013.

This is just an out of the box suggestion but the reality is that every country has an ISO 3166-1 two-letter code and  ccTLD  and South Sudan cannot be an exception. As I discussed in previous posts, .SS is the logical way forward and all this noise about SS is just much ado about nothing. To a South Sudanese, SS is not a controversial name but just the initials of their new independent nation. The darker SS of the 1940s is not part of South Sudanese history. It would not be fair to deny South Sudan a legitimate code just because someone in Europe feel uneasy. Let's assume a militia in Central Africa with the initials NL committed a massacre, a cold blooded murder of millions, would the Dutch be willing to give up .NL just because it makes some Africans uneasy? Yes, that's how pointless the debate on .SS is.

As one of the commentators stated, why should South Sudan pay for the past crimes of Europe?

South Sudan Domains: Pay day for the domain owners of SouthSudan.com

South Sudan has become the world’s newest nation, after breaking away from Sudan.
Which can only mean one thing: domain registration frenzy. Or does it?

In fact, SouthSudan.com has been registered since 2003 and so are most other TLDs, such as .net, .org, .info etc.

Owning a country name in .com is always a trump card and such domain names can become very valuable, especially those of larger countries.
Unfortunately, SouthSudan.com is essentially parked, displaying eNom’s infamous “backpack girl”, also known as “eNom girl.”

The official name of the newest nation in the world is “Republic of South Sudan” – this is also taken in most major TLDs since 2010.

So far there is no indication about what the ISO 3166 code for South Sudan will be, which determines its official ccTLD.

The Sudan country code is SD. Let’s hope that the code for South Sudan won’t be used as an “opportunity TLD” like .so for Somalia or .cm for Cameroon.

Article Source: DomainGang.com
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South Sudan Domains: South Sudan's domain name dilemma

Adapted from Foreign Policy Magazine

Obviously the world's newest country is going to have some bigger problems when it becomes officially independent on Saturday, but it's interesting to look at some of the smaller bureaucratic tasks of setting up a new country. For instance, independent South Sudan will need its own web domain: 

Countries essentially have the pick of any two letters within their name, and there aren’t many remaining that begin with ‘s’. The Soviet Union has .su already (even though it no longer exists as a group of countries), which means the only obvious one that isn’t already taken is .ss.
Indeed, this is the ccTLD that South Sudan would like, but it’s unlikely to be allocated it by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The reason is that .ss has very negative connotations elsewhere. Stephen Lugga, a local official, told Reuters last week:

“We want our domain name to be ‘.ss’ for ‘South Sudan’, but people are telling us ‘SS’ has an association in Europe with Nazis. We have applied for it anyway.”

South Sudan will be in a bit of a predicament if .ss is turned down. Even if we get a little creative with the country’s name, and use ‘.rs’ as in ‘Republic of South Sudan’, this is already taken by Serbia. And .sn is taken by Senegal. In fact, all feasible letter configurations from the country’s name are already taken.

Reuters reports on some of the other hurdles South Sudan needs to deal with. As of July 9, it will have a new international dialing code, a national anthem, and passports. (It seems that a new currency may take a little longer.) The South's information minister says it's diplomatic will move into 34 embassies around the world right off the bat. South Sudan's U.N. membership is likely to be approved within its first week.

.SS country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) for Southern Sudan?

The Southern Sudan has not even been declared a republic but there is already a muted debate raging beneath the surface in the internet community on what country code top level domain name, ccTLD the new nation will/should adopt.
South Sudan is a relatively young nation, with its tall friendly people living under a crushing poverty thanks to 25 years of warfare. That war set the clock backwards on everything. People are even questioning whether GOSS, the government of South Sudan, should even contemplate planning for its internet future when virtually everything else from health care, nutrition, education, basic infrastructure is in tatters?

I however believe that if something is inevitable, then it must be embraced. Southern Sudan is fortunate to have gotten its independence in the information age and internet is the inevitable so it must be embraced without excuses. Which brings me to the question of the new nation's country code top level domain name. Will ISO assign .SS as the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for South Sudan which inevitably means the nation will apply to IANA to delegate .SS as its ccTLD? In an industry where people are obsessed with domain names and TLD extensions, I can't help imagining  names like gov.co.ss , homes.co.ss, germany.ss(no offence intended) and others that the innovative registrants will come up with.

SS Kids

 But the process is not that simple. Before it's assigned the ISO 3166-1 South Sudan will have to be admitted to the UN whereby the Editorial, Terminology and Reference Service of the United Nations Documentation Division will enter the new state in “Country Names”—a pamphlet that lists in six languages the popular and formal names of full UN member nations. Thereafter, the ISO will convert the name South Sudan into the the dreaded two letter SS as its ISO-3166-1 alpha-2 code country code. It's from here that the new country will apply to IANA for the delegation of .SS as its country code Top Level domain name. So it could be awhile before we see .ss on the web.

Now should it be an issue if S.Sudan's ccTLD is .ss?  SS obviously does not have the same negative connotation to a South Sudanese as it does to a European who was a victim of Nazi crimes almost 70 years ago. Please let me know your views on this.