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The campaign to subvert Africa's internet registry

In ten days, AFRINIC, the continent's internet registry votes in its new board. But one man has been trying to commoditise its resources, and is pushing for a takeover.

But Lu Heng disputed AFRINIC’s authority to enforce its own contracts and regulations, and launched a barrage of court cases in Mauritius (25 of them initially), not only to keep control of his lucrative address blocks, but also to extract punitive costs, freeze their accounts, and subsequently depose the board. Upon Dabee’s appointment, ICANN, the highest body responsible for internet address management (including IP, email, domain names among others), wrote him an open letter explaining the importance of the organisation he was about to be custodian of, and begging him not to hurt it like his predecessor did: If he succeeds, Lu Heng’s strategy could see IPv4 addresses for the African region completely taken up for the East Asian market at rates favouring him, and the permanent privatisation of one of the basic building blocks of the internet in Africa (Asia too, if his campaign there is successful).

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