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A Concise Guide to the Major Internet Bodies

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the whole-lotta-acronyms dept.

alex simonelis submitted a good summary of the major internet bodies. If you hunger to know the difference between ICANN, IETF, ISOC and the rest of the alphabet soup of the governing bodies that make our beloved internet possible, this is a great place to look. It covers 10 major organizations.

11 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. I don't see Paris Hilton by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Or goatse.cx for that matter.

    Who is this guy kidding? The major Internet bodies my eye!

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    Infuriate left and right
  2. ahh by nomadic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Favorite internet bodies? Oh, so many jokes coming...

  3. Major Internet Bodies? by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Funny
    I guess it's a start, but there are some pretty major omissions to this list. For example, they managed to overlook both Paris Hilton and Jenna Jameson.

    I don't think they can call this guide "concise" until they address these gaping holes...

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    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    1. Re:Major Internet Bodies? by Inkieminstrel · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't think they can call this guide "concise" until they address these gaping holes...

      Speaking of gaping holes, I think you're missing another major internet body yourself

  4. What vs How by fembots · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's nice to know what each organistion does, but is there an article about how they actually do it?

    For instance, how (pardon my ignorance) ICANN actually controls numbers and names, technically. Is there a mainframe of some sort that stores them? How does ICANN make changes?

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    1. Re:What vs How by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Interesting
      At the very top are the 13 root servers, run by people like VeriSign. If you want to make the Internet pretty useless, take out those servers (someone tried a couple of years ago).

      Someone tries every day, to be more precise there are over 1000 attacks against core DNS each day. Most of the roots are run on a basis that I regard as far too casual given the critical nature of the infrastructure.

      There are not 13 root DNS servers, there are 13 root IP addresses which is not the same thing at all. Several of the roots are anycast so there are actually multiple data centers serving them. The number of root servers is much larger than 13.

      Another pretty major omission from the list is OASIS which has roughly the same degree of influence as W3C and considerably more than the IETF.

      The premise of the list is somewhat misguided. The standards bodies themselves don't have any influence on the Internet, its the members and the software providers who have influence. The point of the standards work is to get buy in from the necessary stakeholders, not to solve problems by committee.

      Giving the choice between having my spec rejected by the IESG and having it rejected by Microsoft or the Apache group I'll choose the first. One of the big problems with the IETF is that many folk think that they are somehow 'in control'. Not on this Internet you ain't, if I don't get a chance to vote on who holds an office I don't see why I have to respect the decisions made by the office holder. I certainly don't see why I should wait two years or more for them to come to a decision.

      I helped set up W3C when the IETF web standards effort collapsed. HTML was originally proposed in the IETF and turned into a disaster. When W3C was not interested in doing the work I do I played a leading role in one of the early OASIS Web Security standards. I am currently sitting in a W3C working group where the discussion has got into some particularly arcane details of XML.

      Standards organizations are a vehicle, they are neither the driver, nor the road.

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  5. Lawyers for the IANA by Macrobat · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wonder if the lawyers for the IANA ever abbreviate their titles to IANAL. And I wonder if that ever confuses the heck out of people.

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    "Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
  6. What about the other internets? by thedogcow · · Score: 5, Funny

    The article only discussed the major bodies for just the one internet. What about the other internets? Is there an ICANN2, IETF2, and ISOC2?

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    Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
  7. ha by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We all know Google is the whole internet. It's like the libary index and filing system all in one, without it we're lost in a sea of knowledge without anything to sort it so we can find it.

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    I like muppets.
  8. I'm a regular contributor to by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm a regular contributor to WTF, the most ubiquitous internet body.

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  9. ISOC/IETF vs ICANN by elfuq · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No one (and this article itself) has ever really objectively described the compromises/disputes between the old internet governance infrastructure and the increasingly corporate-dominated and somewhat authoritarian ICANN.

    ICANN is supposed to have a standards pillar. However all internet standards are really developed by the IETF, published by the RFC Editor and adopted by the community the way that they have always been. (The exception being HTML/HTTP and its derivatives - the W3C is entirely corporate)

    There's some mention here of the dispute over IANA. Back in the day, it was just Postel, and he demonstrated entire control over the root servers. But now it's really not clear who controls the root servers, allocates IP address ranges to the regional registries, and assigns other numbers. This stuff should be transparent!