After recounting what he was able to find out -- it reads like about half a spy story, with the good bits missing -- Mr. McCarthy persuasively concludes that the .ly affair is due in part to the behavior of the managers and would-be managers of .ly, and in part ot IANA's secretive ways"

So where do we stand? It's impossible to tell. Dr Tayeb appears to have a legitimate claim to the Libyan domain but the organisation in charge - IANA - is known to be talking to another party. However, IANA refused to change the .ly nameservers for that company because of the Catch-22 situation that it is not registered as the official owner - the official owner being a company that no longer exists.

Mr Luheshi is refusing to answer questions left on his phone and sent through email. Dr Tayeb has equally not responded to emails and his phone contact numbers do not work. Meanwhile, ICANN and IANA refuse to disclose any details of the redelegation or even if they are willing to step in to end the impasse.

In short, it is a complete mess and should raise some very serious questions over how authority in the Internet's infrastructure is decided. It is also, again, a damning indictment against ICANN culture of secrecy which has meant that no one - not even those that are claiming ownership of the domain - know what is going on.

Should a squabble between owners lead to an entire country's Internet presence disappearing? Clearly not. And once the problem has finally been resolved, ICANN would do well to make space at its next meeting to discuss what lessons can be learnt from this whole sorry saga.