From the amazing headline department -- Libya disappears from the Internet

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:29:09 -0400
From: Daniel Weitzner <djweitzner () w3 org>


Libya disappears from the Internet
By Kieren McCarthy
Published Tuesday 13th April 2004 14:54 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/13/libya_falls_off_net/

Libya has disappeared from the Internet and no one seems to be able to 
explain why.

Late on Friday, all .ly domains stopped working and they're still not up 
now. The administrative and technical contact for the country's Internet 
presence have not answered phone calls or emails at their Tripoli office.

However, one intriguing clue has come from company Lydomains.com - the 
company charged with selling all .ly domains and which, oddly enough, is 
based in Macclesfield in the UK. Lydomains.com put out an email on Friday 
which read: "It is with regret that we have to inform you, that due to 
unilateral action by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 
(http://www.iana.org), the Domain Name Servers that host the zone files for 
the ccTLD .ly have been disabled.

[..]

This is backed up by a quick check over the Net. Libya's top-level domain 
doesn't appear to point anywhere at all. It should have primary and 
secondary name servers where all the details of .ly domains are contained. 
But nothing. In short, .ly has ceased to exist.

[..]

Unfortunately, it has so far been impossible to verify what is going on. 
Lydomain.com is not answering its phone or email. IANA has failed to make 
any mention of any dispute with Libyan domains or, in fact, make any 
reference to it at all. ICANN equally has no suggestion as to what is going 
on. And the Libyans themselves are not answering their phones and, 
presumably, do not have any email.

Not a very nice way to treat what is apparently a friend of the West again. ®

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/