The top-level domain (TLD) you’re referring to: XN—SES554G, is an internationalized country code top-level domain (IDN ccTLD) for the People’s Republic of China (Source: IANA, “Root Zone Database”). This domain is represented in ASCII compatible encoding (ACE) format, also known as “Punycode”, which enables non-English characters to be used in web and email addresses.
The regular domain for this IDN ccTLD is “网址”. In the language of its home country, China, it means “web address.” The operator of this TLD is the KNET Co. Ltd. The domain was originally delegated by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) in ICANN’s new gTLD program (Source: ICANN, “New gTLD Program”).
ICANN, a private (non-government) non-profit corporation, is responsible for coordinating the maintenance and methodologies that services DNS (Domain Name System) root zone in the internet. Their program to expand the domain name system for the internet included provisions for new generic TLD’s as well as internationalized versions of existing TLDs. This was done to promote competition and choice in the domain name space and provide greater system security, stability and resilience (Source: ICANN).
An example of a website that uses the XN—SES554G domain is the official site of the operator itself: “http://xn—ses554g/”, which is translated to “http://网址/”.
It’s worth noting that Punycode, the technology that enables the use of non-English characters in internet addresses, has been criticized for enabling phishing attacks. This occurs because visually similar character sets (like Cyrillic and Latin) can be misused to create misleading domains for malicious intent. This is something users of the XN—SES554G domain would need to be aware of (Source: Krebs on Security, 2017).
In conclusion, the TLD “XN—SES554G”, also referred to in its non-Punycode form as “网址”, is one of the internationalized TLDs that was introduced under ICANN’s new gTLD program to enable a more global and inclusive internet. While it provides opportunities for more diverse and localized online presence, it also poses certain security issues users need to be aware of.
Sources used:
1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA): Root Zone Database: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db
2. ICANN: New gTLD Program: https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program
3. Krebs on Security, 2017, “Don’t Domain Names in Homoglyph?”, https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/punycode/
