Back in 1993, I was leading a global program‘s developmental and technical components to connect developing countries to the Internet. Its core goal was to spread information on sustainable development following the UN 1992 Earth Summit agreements. The program started with a pilot in ten countries and eventually expanded to 50 across all regions. As dedicated connections were prohibitively expensive then, I decided to use store and forward protocols, a la BITNET, running between project countries and headquarters, the latter already on the Internet and thus serving as a master gateway. We deployed dedicated Linux servers in every country while local project staff secured much-needed fixed phone lines. Calls started from headquarters, as local per-minute charges for international calls were also unaffordable for most. The idea was that such a setup could make switching relatively straightforward once a dedicated Internet connection could be secured affordably. At the same time, local users could continue to call in to use the services — or show up at the project premises — without being exposed to disruptive interface changes.
Honduras was one of the ten initial countries. The country’s ccTLD (country code top-level domain) had not been claimed by anyone, so we started the registration process with the local project team. That took a few days, and in April 1993, the .hn domain name saw the light of day. At the time, domain names were not commodities and had a zero price.
A couple of years later, I was unexpectedly asked to meet senior managers. That was rare, and I could not figure out what was happening. Moreover, I was not very fond of meetings and usually did my best to avoid them. “Not this time, my friend,” I said to myself. It turns out the Honduras Mission to the UN had sent an official communication to the UN Secretary-General complaining about the status of the .hn domain name. It referenced my name, accused me of theft, and implicitly demanded my prompt dismissal. The letter also said .hn was part of the country’s “national heritage” (thus the theft charge) and was allegedly required to ensure the success of an ongoing OAS program connecting academic institutions in the region to the Internet. A copy of the message was forwarded to the head of the organization spearheading the global program implementation. At the same time, the national government kept sending official communications to the local UN office in Tegucigalpa to increase the pressure.
Not surprisingly, senior managers were not entirely sure what the issue was. Domain names and ccTLDs were not yet in their vocabulary. What the hell is a domain name was the first question asked. I spent most of the meeting answering that and several other follow-up questions using a real estate analogy where numerical addresses and street names are typical. Moreover, I informed them that the .hn domain name had never been registered under my name. In the end, I was asked to draft a reply. The response eventually went back to the Mission. And that was the last time I heard about it. The ccTLD thus survived the unforeseen attack. And no, I was not dismissed. Bear in mind that all this occurred before ICANN came into existence. IANA was the instance taking care of such intricate matters then.
However, the story did not end there, as I expected. In 2006, ICANN signed an accountability framework with the domain name administrators in Honduras. By then, our project had become fully independent, and a new civil society organization had been created to support it. The sapling we planted in 1993 was now a robust, self-sustaining, and resilient tree! The agreement with ICANN strengthened the initiative further and legitimized the management of the ccTLD.
However, the 2009 coup d’état against President Zelaya allowed the interim and illegitimate new government to take another shot at seizing control of the ccTLD. In late September, government officials raided the organization’s offices. They demanded, in the name of the National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL, the telco regulator), the immediate suspension of all domain name activities and their prompt transfer to the government. Meanwhile, staff scrambled to remove the servers from the location while avoiding being arrested by local officials. They somehow succeeded without being detected by the authorities. However, the head of the organization had to leave the country to avoid (il)legal prosecution. Amid a barrage of punches and counterpunches, that attempt also fell short—no black eyes on our side, though. Just a few minor scratches here and there.
If anything, that story neatly illustrates the challenges of digital sovereignty. We see a sovereign nation-state making strong claims over a new digital asset to a supranational sovereign organization, oblivious to the fact that such an asset was under the (network) digital sovereignty of IANA and, later on, ICANN. The UN’s response to the initial dispute was that it had no role in the game and could not proceed as requested. Any claims or dispute resolution should be redirected to IANA, the entity managing such assets, under a set of rules it had already established. I have no idea if the Honduran government ever contacted IANA. While changing domain name administrative contacts was quite feasible, I knew the current domain name administrative contact had to initiate the request for its modification. In fact, that is precisely what happened to the .hn ccTLD, which changed such contact two times between 1993 and 1998.
Conflating digital and analog assets is another theme the example shows. Clearly, a nation-state strongly believed that its ccTLD was part of its territory and should thus be under its administration and oversight. However, a domain name differs from a national natural reserve or a public museum, for example. The former is provided by nature and happens to be within the geographical limits of the nation-state. The state usually builds the latter on public land, mainly with public funding. A ccTLD does not have any of these characteristics. It is a newly created digital asset seeking to be claimed and used to facilitate Internet access on a structured and secure basis. Looking at how these new digital assets are produced is thus critical. Note also that domain names are not owned by its administrators. Instead, they are leased to them, initially for free and nowadays for constantly increasing prices. And many ccTLDs have also morphed into generic TLDs (gTLDs) to maximize revenues.
Finally, the example showcases the need to refine the definition of digital sovereignty that Jiang & Belli shared in the previous post. Here, we see how national and supranational sovereign entities could not bypass IANA and ICANN to address the alleged issue. In other words, their sovereignty did not have any leverage to challenge the supreme authority of IANA et al. The latter had the last word, as does ICANN today. Indeed, all Internet users must follow the rules and requirements the digital sovereign has established to assign and manage Internet names and numbers.
While exercising agency is necessary for digital sovereignty, it is insufficient. Having supreme authority over a given realm, digital or otherwise, is also needed. If that was not the case, then we should have seen the emergence of not one but many IANAs or ICANNs. Just like the sovereign nation-state, competition is not allowed. However, having a decentralized domain system running on blockchain is quite feasible. In any event, ICANN’s sovereignty is delimited by the laws of its host country, which at this very moment is trying to shock the world with a vengeance. Sovereignty in all its flavors is at stake.
Raul
