WELCOME TO THE
INTERNET SOCIETY, Internauts
Vinton G. Cerf, President
The Internet Society is the non-governmental International Organization for global cooperation and coordination for the Internet and its internetworking technologies and applications.
The Society's individual and organizational members are bound by a common stake in maintaining the viability and global scaling of the Internet. They comprise the companies, government agencies, and foundations that have created the Internet and its technologies as well as innovative new entrepreneurial organizations contributing to maintain that dynamic. Visit their home pages to see how Internet innovators are creatively using the network.
The Society is governed by its Board of Trustees elected by its membership around the world.
The Society announces the INET'95 Proceedings are now available
at inet.nttam.com in extensive hypermedia form for the 1995 International Networking Conference (INET'95).
This Conference will be convened 27-30 June 1995 at Honolulu, Hawaii USA.
The Society has prepared an initial Overview of Internet and Internet Society Funding Needs and Opportunities to assist in providing for sustainable and scaleable revenue for many of the basic activities that have made the Internet possible.
The First Internet Society Summit was convened 11-12 April 1995 at San Diego, CA USA. Proceedings and audio tapes are available by sending an EMail note to the Society's Book Nook.
The Society announces the availability of proceedings from the highly successful Symposium on Networked and Distributed System Security. This Symposium was convened 16-17 February 1995 at San Diego CA USA.
The Internet Society recently established the Internet PCA Registration Authority (IPRA) under Jeff Schiller at MIT to allow global implementation of public key cryptographic applications.
The Society's 1994 International Networking Conference (INET'94) Proceedings are also now available using a WWW implementation.
Positions Available at Internet Society Headquarters
Watching for future position postings here.
Information Services
- All About the Internet Society provides structured
information about the all the various bodies, committees, conferences, and activities of the Society, including most
of its documents.
- The Internet Global NIS provides a structured encylopedia
of the entire breadth of the Internet around the world, including regional and national developments, internet
technologies, applications, issues, user communities, conferences, and publications.
- Internet Service Providers of the World
- Internet related conferences and forums
In addition, the Society maintains heavily referenced presentation materials such as:
Current Internet Society Policy Proceedings
Papers and Presentations of Interest
Internet Society Chapters
National and local chapters of the Internet Society have been or are being formed.
Additional information is available from their sites.
Internet Standards
We reject kings, presidents, and voting.
We believe in rough consensus and running code.
IETF Credo
Dave Clark (1992)
At the technical and developmental level, the Internet is made possible through creation,
testing and implementation of Internet Standards. These standards are developed by
the Internet Engineering Task Force.
The standards are then considered by the Internet Engineering Steering Group, with
appeal to the Internet Architecture Board,
and promulgated by the Internet Society as international standards. The RFC Editor is
responsible for preparing and organizing the standards in their final form. The
standards may be found at numerous sites distributed throughout the world. See,
for example, the ds.internic.
At the applications level,
the MIT World Wide Web Consortium plays
the leading role in developing and promulgating WWW standards.
Internet Administration
Some Internet Standards require administrative implementation in order to allow
the Internet to be operational. These include, for example, Internet Protocol
address or domain names at upper levels. The overall responsibility
for this work is vested in the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA),
which delegates the actual administration of most functions to other
bodies.
At global regional levels, the principal bodies include the:
For a complete overview, see the Society compilation Global and Country Top Level Domains of the World. 
(Your browser MUST support table extensions.)
Internet Operations
Internet operations are coordinated worldwide through the Internet Engineering
Planning Group (IEPG).
It's meeting announcements and minutes are available.
At global regional levels, bodies active in coordinating operations include the:
Internet Security
Internet network security is significantly facilitated by a number of Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) in eight countries and within a number of service provider operations and private networks. They were formed to continually monitor the network for security incidents, serve as a repository for information about such incidents, and develop responsive advisories. The CERTs are coordinated by the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.
Permanent Secretariats of the Internet Society and Associated Bodies
The Society's Headquarters and International Secretariat is located at Reston, Virginia, USA near Dulles International Airport.
It also maintains a historical archive of Internet-related material and the Museum of the Internet.
While the Museum is being constructed, we highly recommend the notable Internauts Gallery constructed by
Peter Löthberg and Ulla Sandberg.
Joining the Internet Society Using WWW Forms
The facilities at the Internet Society headquarters were make possible through
grants and gifts of systems and equipment from Sun Microsystems, Cisco, IBM, Apple Computer,
3COM, MCI, and UUNET Technologies; and software from NetManage, FTP Software, InterConn,
Microsoft and Spry.
Tony Rutkowski, Executive Director
amr@isoc.org
24 May 95
Copyright © 1995 Internet Society. All rights reserved.
