The Lost Wizard on the Future of the Internet

The Internet. The mainstay of life in the early twenty-first century. Yet
how many of us truly know what it is, how it came about, or even think about
where it is going? How many ask questions like who should control it or what
laws should apply to it? Just why is it so unruly? Stay tuned for comments
on these questions and more.

Any discussion of "the Internet" must necessarily define what is it. Well,
the Internet is a truly ad hoc collection of networks that have agreed to
exchange traffic under the Internet Protocol (IP). Every node on the 'net is
an equal citizen as far as the protocol is concerned. All actual
communication is peer to peer in nature. That is, any two nodes on the 'net
can decide to strike up a conversation without the interference or presence
of a server. The only thing that is required is that there be a route
between the two that allows the conversation to occur.

That's a rough technical explanation of the 'net. It is, however, much more
than that. It is an increasingly global phenomenon as the infrastructure to
support it is pushed further and further into the lesser developed corners
of the world and even into orbit. It serves as a general purpose
communication tool for many people and as a collaboration environment for
many groups of geographically separated individuals. It has provided a
glimpse at the possibilities of a system where all communication methods can
be integrated into a single entity.

And imagine, this whole immense interconnected morass of computers began
because a few people felt the need to make a small number of computers talk
to each other. Then another group did the same in another location. Then
another. Then they decided it would be cool to exchange information between
the various networks that had sprung up. Hence the term "internet" from
"internetwork network". Since then, the 'net has been expanding at an
alarming rate.

As for where the 'net is going? Well, that's a complicated issue. Currently,
it appears to be fixing to take over the terrestrial telecommunications
industry. Perhaps it has a very good chance of doing so. But how will this
end goal be affected by other factors?

Currently, there is no effective central governing body on earth. Therefore,
individual jurisdictions have made various attempts to control and/or
regulate the internet and have met with varying degrees of success. As the
political landscape of the plant changes over time, which jurisdiction has
the most influence over others changes. This is a similar situation as the
"intellectual property" conundrum which will not be discussed here. This
begs the question of who should govern the internet and how much authority
should be granted to individual political jurisidictions?

Clearly the ideal solutions is to enact an effective world government.
Something considerably more effective than the United Nations. This
governing body would the be able to legislate the rules under which the
internet would operate. This is, unfortunately, unlikely to occur within a
reasonable time frame.

Another possibility would be for an international committee be selected,
similar to the ruling committes for various other international situations.
The members of this committee would then be rotated out on a regular basis
and would be able to operate independent of whatever laws exist in a single
nation. This may sound like an ideal solution, but it is, alas, unlikely to
occur. It would require more cooperation than is currently extant at the
international level.

Perhaps the internet should govern itself. That is, it should be
jurisdictionally neutral and have no overarching controlling body other than
whatever it spontaneously creates? That is, the users of the internet run
the internet by simple majority common practice. This is the most likely
eventual form the internet will take, regardless how many detours are taken
along the way.

In the mean while, it looks like individual organizations such as the
american "Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers" are going to
continue to try to take over the internet while other organizations such as
the Internet Engineering Task Force and OpenNIC will continue to fight
against that happening.

So why is the internet so unruly? Well, it is probably because of the fact
it exists in so many disparate jurisdictions and is used by some many people
with different and often contradictory beliefs about what it is and where it
is going.

I figure you've probably had enough of my ramblings now. I'll leave it with
one final thought: The Internet routes around perceived damage.

William Astle
June 14, 2001

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