How the Internet works

[nihil]

Hi Gosdsrock,

You have been given some good links to start with. But to take up on your hypothesis............

1. A LAN is simple, you can set one up in your own home, workplace, appartment block or whatever. It is private and you control it.

2. A WAN is more far reaching and introduces the concept of some sort of carrier............generally a Telco.............. once again it is private, and could be internally owned.

3. WWW ...............as it says "World wide" so you need some sort of organisation to facilitate it.

Now, it is #3 that we are interested in? and the issue is not that different from the one faced by the postal or telecommunications services, or even the media.

Radio and TV stations have a limited power (transmission range) and are given certain frequencies, bandwidths and timeslots by their local authorities. You have unique telephone numbers and postal addresses?

When these "go Global" then it is an international body that takes over and agrees the "rules".............. The Universal Postal Union is one that comes to mind

What I am saying is that the WWW faces the same issues as these earlier technologies, in that it is not "hard wired" and is global in its embrace.

The requirement is basically to assign unique addresses that everyone agrees to, although this has been somewhat obfuscated by political sidetracking.

The Texican (hi Tex how's it hangin pal? ) has cited ICANN. Please look at it and check the makeup (nationalistically speaking) of its management.......... it may live in America, but it has many nationalities amongst its personnel........... hell, the UN headquarters are in America?

Telecoms are regulated from Geneva by this lot:

http://www.itu.int/net/home/index.aspx

Postal services are regulated from Berne by this lot:

http://www.upu.int/

And the message here? well, nuking Switzerland might be considered reasonable sport............... nuking the USA might provoke some unfavourable criticisms ........... at least from our ballistic submarine fleet