Standards and Standardization in the
Internet
Author: Indira Guzman - May 7,2001
Paper written for IST 618: Survey/Telecom & Information
Policy by Prof. Milton Mueller
The Internet is a network of
networks that allows all the Internet users to communicate and interact between
them. To make effective the communication between computers all of them work
under a standardized and coordinated addressing scheme. This standardized scheme
is regulated and developed by consensus, where all the Internet users are able
to give their opinion. These regulations have emerged from the bottom up and not
the top down and are organized by many Internet bodies in the world.
Organizations involved in the scheme of
standardization of the Internet
These are some of the most
important Internet organizations that work for the interests of the whole
Internet Community and its standards. They are self-created and
self-governing.
|
Acronym |
Name |
Purpose |
|
IETF |
Internet Engineering Task
Force |
It
is the international community of network designers, operators, vendors
and researchers concerned with the evolution of evolution of the Internet
architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It develops agreed
technical standards, such as communications protocols.
|
|
ICANN |
Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers |
ICANN is the non-profit
corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address
space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system
management, and root server system management functions previously
performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities. It is
the assignment authority for domain names.
|
|
IESG |
Internet Engineering
Steering Group |
The
IESG is responsible for technical management of IETF activities and the
Internet standards process. As part of the ISOC, it administers the
process according to the rules and procedures which have been ratified by
the ISOC Trustees. The IESG is directly responsible for the actions
associated with entry into and movement along the Internet "standards
track," including final approval of specifications as Internet Standards.
IESG coordinates and approves the technical standards.
|
|
ISOC |
Internet Society |
The
ISOC is a professional membership organization of Internet experts that
comments on policies and practices and oversees a number of other boards
and task forces dealing with network policy issues. The ISOC provides
leadership in the management of Internet related standards, educational,
and policy development issues.
|
|
IAB |
Internet Architecture
Board |
The
IAB is a technical advisory group of the Internet Society, responsible for
IESG Selection, Architectural Oversight, Standards Process Oversight and
Appeal, RFC Series and IANA, External Liaison and Advice to ISOC.
|
|
IANA |
Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority |
The
IANA preserves the central coordinating functions of the global Internet
for the public good. IANA houses the many unique parameters and protocol
values necessary for operation of the Internet and its future
development.
|
The Internet Standard Process
The Internet Standards process
is an activity of the Internet Society that is organized and managed on behalf
of the Internet community by the IAB and the IESG. It is a set of steps and
activities that will give as a result the standards of protocols and
procedures.
“An Internet Standard is a specification that
is stable and well-understood, is technically competent, has multiple,
independent, and interoperable implementations with substantial operational
experience, enjoys significant public support, and is recognizably useful in
some or all parts of the internet.” (RFC2026 S. BRADNER [1996])
To be adopted as a standard, a
specification undergoes a period of development and several iterations of review
by the Internet community and revision based upon experience. First, a
specification becomes a RFC (Request for Comments) document. Not all of the RFC
become Internet Standards. Then, if the RFC becomes a standard, it is adopted by
appropriate body and is published to the public as a standard.
Why the process is complicated?
The process is complicated
because:
The
difficulty of creating specifications of high technical quality according to the
actual technology;
The
need to consider the interests of all the affected parties around the world;
The
importance of establishing widespread community consensus; and
The
difficulty of evaluating the utility of a particular specification for the
Internet community taking a very long time.
The goals of the Internet Standards
Process:
Technical excellence
Prior implementation and testing
Clear, concise, and easily understood documentation
Openness and fairness; and
Timeliness
The specification is
published as a part of the “Request for Comments” (RFC), which are document
series through an official publication channel in ASCII format.
During the development of a
specification, draft versions of the document are made available for informal
review and comment by placing them in the IETF’s “ Internet –Drafts” directory,
which is replied on a number of Internet hosts.
Categories of specifications:
Specifications subject to the
Internet Standards Process fall into one of two categories:
- Technical
Specification (TS) – is any description of a protocol, service, procedure,
convention or format.
- Applicability
Statement (AS) – it specifies how, and under what circumstances, one or more
TSs may be applied to support a particular Internet capability.
Standards Track Maturity Levels
Internet specifications go
through the following stages of development, testing and acceptance:
Best Current Practice (BCP)
The BCP sub-series of the RFC
is designed to be a way to standardize practices and the results of community
deliberations. A BCP document is subject to the same basic set of procedures as
standards track documents and thus is a vehicle by which the IETF community can
define an ratify the community’s best current thinking on a statement of
principle of on what is believed to be the best way to perform some operations
or IETF process function. It is another way to make a Standard for the Internet
Community.
Emergence of ways to avoid the present Internet
Standardization Scheme
Most of the companies follow
the described standard scheme. However, there are some cases where some
companies do not follow this scheme and are considered important because they
have the participation of thousands of Internet users. The problem is that some
standard issues become corrupted by other interests, such as commercial
interests of some people.
Avoiding the Standard Domain Name Scheme
On march 5
th, 2001,
New.net (
http://www.new.net/) a start-up based
in Pasadena, California, began selling domain names based on suffixes or top
level domains like: .kids, .sport, and .xxx, that are not sanctioned by ICANN.
To make this work they use a program- which can be downloaded for free in his
web site –that will add the extension “new.net” automatically to the address and
will route the request to the firm’s own name system.
According to this company,
there are already more than 21 million of Internet users that have the program
that allows them to access to New.net domain names. It was done because this
company got the support of leading American ISPs (Internet Service Providers),
such as
Excite@Home and Earthlink giving it 16m
potential users from the start. When so many people is involved in a situation
like this it is harder to find a consensus because there can be millions of
dollars in the middle and users interests.
Many people are concerned about
appropriate domain names. As the ABC Namebank International president Naseem
Javed said, "The name must show power, it must be unique. It must have a
protective layer between so that your competitors are scared to touch you," and
this could be one argument that can support to this company. As a matter of
fact, there were many applications for more gTLD to be approved by the
scheme.
Analyzing the situation
Internet Standards are created
to provide a uniform scheme for all the Internet Users. However, when some
companies start creating situations where they avoid this Standard Scheme there
are many consequences that could be positive and negative for the users and for
the Internet itself.
Some effects to consider could
be the following:
This could be an opportunity to
speed up the introduction of new domain with sufficient number of new suffixes
that can be added, enhancing competition for registration services, the utility
of the DNS and the number of available domain names.
On the other hand, if an
Internet user makes transactions based on electronic commerce in the Internet in
a site that is registered outside the scheme there is no guaranty about the
holder of the Domain Name. This could be an unsafe environment for
business.
There is no certification for
these registrars and registers. Therefore, there is no support from the big
organizations that work in benefit of the whole Internet Community.
Policy recommendations
Even though, all the standards
are approved when they got a consensus, most of the Internet users do not know
about this scheme where many organizations, researchers and companies are
involved. All those organizations should make more publications and
advertisements to publish and let people know the purposes of the entire
scheme.
The final decision about using
or not a different program that is not “standard”, will be taken by the Internet
user, but the problem is that this user should make the decision knowing and
understanding the risks of avoiding the Process of Standardization and the
world wide recognized scheme.
Similarly, it is important to
promote the participation of more new users. Usually, people who make comments
about RFCs published by IETF are leaders in their mediums and represent the
interest of the people in that medium. However, it is still not a representative
number considering the regions and the number of Internet users at this
time.
Sources: