[ih] What does being "in charge of the Internet" mean?

[Jack Haverty]

On 12/6/22 00:55, Dr Eberhard W Lisse via Internet-history wrote:
> What does being "in charge of the Internet" mean?
>
> el

Getting back to this question...

IIRC, one of the fundamental questions of the "Internet Experiment" was 
whether or not it was possible to create and operate a network for which 
no one person or entity was "in charge".   Prior networks, such as 
ARPANET, were managed and operated by a single locus of control, e.g., 
DARPA/DCA for setting policy, and contractor BBN to handle the technical 
operations of the switching fabric.

If you look at other kinds of infrastructures, much of this issue of 
control has been worked out over the years.  E.g., the air travel 
"network" has all sorts of rules and procedures, policies and agreements 
between countries, ancillary mechanisms such as air traffic control, and 
funding channels such as gate charges.   There are also laws and 
constraints governing things like airport operations, crew and passenger 
safety, cargo restrictions, etc. Various organizations, both public and 
private, are "in charge".

Similar control structures have been developed, sometimes over 
centuries, for other forms of "moving stuff", e.g, trains, automobiles, 
ships, etc.

The telephone system is one of the newer infrastructures, but has been 
around long enough to have developed a lot of such control mechanisms 
with multiple entities in charge of various pieces. Still, it is not 
complete.  For example, in the US at least, there have recently been 
laws passed to combat "spoofing" of telephone numbers and require system 
operators to implement them.

IMHO, the Internet is still too young to have developed such control 
structures.  So there are many aspects of the Internet as a data 
transportation infrastructure that are not yet developed.

One example, from perhaps 20 years ago...  At the time, delivering 
software across country or state boundaries required payment of tariffs 
or duties.   Such "control" had been created and still applied to 
software delivered on CDs, i.e., some kind of physical media.  However, 
FTPing across the Internet bypassed those mechanisms.    The "control 
mechanisms" for taxes and tariffs hadn't adapted to the new world of the 
Internet.

IMHO, "in charge of the Internet" means having the policies, procedures, 
mechanisms, and organizations in place, with a mix of public and private 
components, to assure that the Internet is operated and evolved with the 
same goals as other infrastructures - e.g., safety, availability, 
conformance to laws, reliability, and other such aspects of things that 
we all depend upon.  Since the Internet is a global infrastructure, that 
necessarily will also involve international diplomacy and politics, 
treaties and organizations, and multinational coordination.

I had thought that was ISOC's mission, but I think it will take more 
impetus than ISOC can provide.  Also it has to be applied at many levels 
-- not just the "plumbing" of IP.   For example, it is possible today to 
ship cargo like explosives around the world.   But there are many 
constraints, permits, inspections, and obstacles to doing it.   Even 
lithium batteries are regulated.  In the Internet world today, you can 
similarly ship "explosive bits" (hate speech, pornography, terrorist 
manuals, whatever) around the world with little if any control.

Similarly, in the early days, I used to simply trust my email.   The 
Internet was a very collegial environment.  Now, for serious use, email 
is not to be trusted.   Banks, medical facilities, et al use email only 
to tell me that they have a message for me, and I should log in securely 
to their silo to read it.   Over the decades, email has become widely 
available but less trustworthy.   Mechanisms (PGP etc.) exist to provide 
some help, but people seem to ignore them - even those who religiously 
wear seatbelts when using the auto transport network.

In the original Internet and ARPANET, and NSFNet, policy dictated what 
could be sent over the net.  And the policy was enforced. Today?

Not an easy problem.   It's not clear, to me at least, that anyone is 
working on it.

Jack Haverty