WORLD ISSUES:
INTERNET ISSUES PART 6
IAB (Internet Architecture Board)
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is the committee charged with oversight of the
technical and engineering development of the Internet by the Internet Society (ISOC).
It oversees a number of Task Forces, of which the most important are the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).
The body which eventually became the IAB was originally formed by the United States
Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under the name
Internet Configuration Control Board in 1979; it eventually became the Internet Advisory
Board in September, 1984, and then the Internet Activities Board in May, 1986 (the name
was changed, while keeping the same acronym). It finally became the Internet
Architecture Board, under ISOC, in January, 1992, as part of the Internet's transition from
a U.S.-government entity to an international, public entity.
ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)
ICANN (pronounced "I can") is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers. Headquartered in Marina Del Rey, California, ICANN is a California nonprofit corporation that was created on September 18, 1998 in order to oversee a number
of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly on behalf of the U.S. Government
by other organizations, notably IANA.
The tasks of ICANN include managing the assignment of domain names and IP
addresses. To date, much of its work has concerned the introduction of new generic toplevel domains. The technical work of ICANN is referred to as the IANA function; the rest
of ICANN is mostly about defining policy.
IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes Internet standards; in
particular those of the TCP/IP protocol suite. It is an open, all-volunteer standards
organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements.
It is organized into a large number of working groups and BoFs, each dealing with a
specific topic, and intended to complete work on that topic and then shut down. Each
working group has an appointed chair (or sometimes several co-chairs), along with a
charter that describes its focus, and what and when it is expected to produce.
The working groups are organized into areas by subject matter; each area is overseen by
an area director (AD) (most areas have 2 co-AD's); the ADs appoint working group
chairs. The area directors, together with the IETF Chair, form the Internet Engineering
Steering Group (IESG), which is responsible for the overall operation of the IETF.
The IETF is formally an activity under the umbrella of the Internet Society. The IETF is
overseen by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which oversees its external
relationships, and relations with the RFC Editor. The IAB is also jointly responsible for
the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), which oversees the IETF
Administrative Support Activity (IASA), which provides logistical, etc support for the
IETF. The IAB also manages the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), with which the
IETF has a number of cross-group relations.
IRTF (Internet Research Task Force)
The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is a sister group to the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Its stated mission is “To promote research of importance to the
evolution of the future Internet by creating focused, long-term and small Research
Groups working on topics related to Internet protocols, applications, architecture and
technology”.
It is composed of research groups that study long-term issues relating to the Internet and
related technologies. The list of current groups can be found on IRTF's homepage.
The IRTF is managed by the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) which
corresponds to the similar org anization called Internet Engineering Steering Group
(IESG) on the IETF side. The chair of the IRTF is appointed by the Internet Architecture
Board (IAB) for a two year term. The current IRTF chair is Aaron Falk.
ISOC (Internet Society)
The Internet Society or ISOC is an international organization that promotes Internet use
and access. It states that its mission is:
To assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all
people throughout the world. [1]
Its members are both individuals (for whom membership is currently free--membership is
open to anyone), and also corporations, organizations, governments, and universities.
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where member
organisations, a full-time staff, and the public, work together to develop standards for the
World Wide Web. W3C's mission is: "To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential
by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web". W3C
also engages in education and outreach, develops software, and serves as an open forum
for discussion about the Web. The Consortium is headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the
original creator of the World Wide Web and primary author of the URL (Uniform
Resource Locator), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and HTML (HyperText
Markup Language) specifications, the principal technologies that form the basis of the
Web.