An attempt to describe the Internet in one sentence: The Internet is a cross-national infrastructure of cables, routers, switches and servers that rely on multiple services, applications, standards and protocols that allow anyone to exchange data with anybody else, and it is impossible to say who runs or owns the Internet or even understand and agree upon everything necessary to keep it running – which doesn’t keep us from trying.
Keep us from trying? Who is “us,” exactly? It’s hard to say. Just like there is no single central Internet, but rather a variety of autonomous networks, there is no single central party governing the Internet. Instead, we have ICANN with IANA, IETF, IGF, W3C, and the ITU, to name just a few. For a longer list, visit Wikipedia, but don’t count on that list being complete.
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