The Role of the Internet Society
by Klaus Birkenbihl
Growth rates of more than 100% per annum since 15 years. Though:
Who does take care of the Internet? In 1992, a group around the
Internet inventor Vint Cerf established the Internet Society (ISOC).
In an environment increasingly influenced by market and competition,
ISOC secures the conditions for the continuance and cohesion of
the Internet. Since 1995, the Deutsche Interessengemeinschaft
Internet (DIGI e.V.), which was also established in 1992, has
been a German section of ISOC.
For the normal users, the Internet is simply there. They pay the
required charges to T-Online, AOL or another service provider
and hope that the provider will guarantee that it works. However,
the provider - even if it is called AOL or Telekom - maintains
and controls only a minor part of what makes up the Internet.
And this is not only technology. The Internet is an important
part of the infrastructure for the global information society.
The Internet is an economic and political factor whose further
development and regulation will influence the live of everyone
decisively.
Hardly visible in the stir caused by the conflict among the Internet
giants Microsoft, Netscape, Oracle, IBM, CISCO and others, the
Internet Society has undertaken the task to shape and advance
the technical, political and cultural future of the Internet.
The Internet Society regards itself as the international organization
which furthers the global cooperation and coordination for the
Internet, its technologies and applications. Everyone interested
in the further development of the Internet can become a member
of the Internet Society. Conferences and technical and political
bodies give ample opportunity to exert influence on international
and national level. Individual members who want to participate
in shaping the medium’s future are equally welcome as companies
which use or offer the Internet as modern technology for their
purposes.
Technology and administration
The standards for communication in the Internet are defined in
the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). More than 80 working
groups in 8 fields of work are concerned with specific technical
subjects. IETF does its work during three big meetings of more
than 1500 participants per year and by means of all the communication
means provided by the Internet.
On behalf of ISOC and the Federal Network Council (FNC) of the
USA, the central resources of the Internet, eg names, addresses
and protocol parameters have been managed by the Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) under the direction of Ian Postel, who
tragigcally died last summer. Currently ISOC is intensively involved
in restructuring the management of these resources within the
new organisation ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
and Numbers).
Communication
ISOC carries out its mission to propagate and advance the idea
of the Internet on various conferences whose biggest - the INET-Conference
- is held alternatingly on different continents in summer. Pioneering
efforts are put forth by specific workshops on these conferences.
The workshop for developing and threshold countries, for example,
contributed decisively to the fact that there is hardly any country
in the world not having access to the Internet. Further key subjects
of INET are issues of political regulation and social impacts
of technology in addition to technical innovations, new applications
and areas of application.
The Internet Society clearly gives its members’ view on the cryptography
discussion, on the problem of admitted contents and on the free
and secure flow of information on the Internet.
Internationalization
The statement that the Internet is prirmarily a US undertaking
is certainly not completely incorrect. But it is changing. The
Internet meanwhile shows greater growth rates outside the USA
than within the USA. Within the Internet Society, regional “chapters”
give the opportunity to exert influence on the development on
regional level. Many of these groups are still in the process
of organization so that their effectiveness will be visible only
in some years. Recently, a number of the European chapters formed
a group called ISOC-ECC (ISOC European Coordination Council) to
coordinate their activities and to better safeguard their interests
towards the European Union.
DIGI e.V. and ISOC.DE
In Germany, where the Internet has been poorly organized and hardly
accepted till the early 1990’s for different reasons, in 1992,
simultaneously with the Internet Society - the Deutsche Interessengemein-schaft
Internet (DIGI e.V.) was established to improve the conditions
for propagating the Internet in Germany. The establishment of
a national Network Information Center (DENIC), for managing addresses
and names on national level, is equally a goal of this group as
the technical and political discussion about the Internet in Germany
in particular.
In 1995, DIGI e.V. was recognized by ISOC as “German Chapter”
of the Internet Society. Since then, DIGI e.V. uses the abbreviation
and the Internet domain ISOC.DE e.V. Like the global ISOC, ISOC.DE
gives its view on organizational, technical and political issues
pursuing the further development of the Internet.
ISOC.DE clearly states its point of view on subjects such as safeguarding
the DENIC which manages the .de domain, the cryptography discussion
in Germany, Internet and censorship and structural issues of the
Internet in Germany. The annual conference, Opennet, to be held
this year in Bad Honnef from 15-17 November 1999 will give ample
opportunity for discussions and first-hand information.
Representative?
With hardly 7000 members worldwide and 250 in Germany, ISOC is
certainly still in the initial states of its work. Therefore,
the claim to speak for the Internet community cannot be backed
by the number of members. Today, it is rather the expertise concentrated
in ISOC, the efficient way of agreeing on standards and the absolute
independence of any business interests which lend weight to ISOC.
But this is changing. More and more companies discover the Internet
as an important business sector where showing technical and organizational
competence might be an asset. And the intention of these companies
to swamp the Internet with proprietary standards is not to be
overlooked. The political pressure to curb the Internet through
regulation is also increasing. The Internet Society is therefore
confronted with the urgent task to recruit a solid basis of members.
This is the only way to attain the goal to exert a substantial
influence on the development of an open Internet.
Links
ISOC: http://www.isoc.org
ISOC.DE: http://www.isoc.de
IETF: http://www.ietf.org
INET: http://www.isoc.org/inet98/
DENIC: http://www.denic.de/
W3C and ISOC.DE Offices: http://www.gmd.de/w3c/welcome.html
Please contact:
Klaus Birkenbihl - GMD
Tel: +49 2241 14 2910
E-mail: Klaus.Birkenbihl@gmd.de
