Who cares for Internet?

Many people care about the internet. All the people who use it, even if only

to send a note to someone on some other network that is connected into the

Internet, care about it. Someone or some enterprise owns each computer

nternet. The telephone companies „own‟ the pieces that carry the

equipment. So, while no one person or entity owns the internet, all who use

it or supply materials for it play a part in its existence.

Since communication between networks cannot happen without

co-operation, there are committees and groups working hard all the time to

ensure smooth functioning. Some issues related to providing standards and

identification of computers on the NET are to be cared by somebody. Some

groups have thus been formed who look after primarily about the

commonality part of internet. This body is called IAB (Internet Architecture

Board), earlier called Internet Board as named by ARPA. There are two

main wings to this board:

IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)

IRTF (Internet Research Task Force)

IETF does a documentation of the internet known as RFC (Request For

Comments), named so because it is a set of open-ended documents always

available to public for their comments and thus the standards keep

continuously evolving.

Apart from maintaining protocols and norms/standards, another important

function of commonality is assigning unique names and addresses to

computers connected on the Net. This function is performed by InterNIC

(Internet Network Information Center) which is a group of three

organizations.

1. General Atomics, CA : Provides Information Services

2. AT & T., NY : Provides Directory and Database Services

3. Network Solutions, VA : Provides Registration Service

The services of InterNIC group are available on the Internet itself. Each

individually connected network maintains its own user policies and

procedures as to who can be connected, what kind of traffic the network will

carry, and so on.

connected. The owner of the connected equipment therefore „owns‟ a piece

of the i

information packets. The service providers „own‟ the packet routing