Are We There Yet?: Monitoring the Technical Deployment of the National Segments of the Internet

Global Internet governance is in turmoil. Several countries have either employed the concept of ‘sovereignty’ in their national cybersecurity strategies or even declared the aim to close or restrict their national network from the global Internet and become ‘digitally sovereign’. Russia seems to be one of the countries that is closing its ‘national segment of the Internet’ in a controlled manner and attempting something that has never been done before. By using the Russian national segment's closing process as an example, this paper develops a ‘accessibility matrix’ for monitoring the technical deployment of the national segments of the Internet.