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

[Miles Fidelman]

Comments at end...

Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> 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
yes... folks are working on it - though not the right ones - 
politicians, lawyers, censors, propagandists, marketeers - all working 
to both segment the net & favor their messages while suppressing others 
- a far cry from the days when it was all about connectivity, 
interoperability, and Metcalfe's law

perhaps ISOC & ICANN could have done a better job of 
encouraging/enforcing standards - rather than abdicating either 
government or market forces - but it might well be too late - not a 
happy situation

the model I keep coming back to is religion - we have global religions, 
tied together by various kinds of organizations - but somehow, the 
organizations keep splitting, battling, self-destructing, changing their 
messages, ....

perhaps the scientific community is a better model - open data & 
publication, transparency, and peer review - and a modicum of polite 
behavior

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown