The Net consists of thousands of thousands of governmental and private networks linked together. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way of ever gaining ultimate control of the Internet. Although each of these networks is operated and controlled by an organization, no single organization operates and controls the Net. Instead of a central authority governing the Net, several bodies assure the operability of the Net by developing and setting technical specifications for the Net and by the control of the technical key functions of the Net as the coordination of the domain name system and the allocation of IP numbers.
Originally, the Net was a research project funded and maintained by the US Government and developed in collaboration by scientists and engineers. As the standards developed for ensuring operability ensued from technical functionality, technical coordination gradually grew out of necessity and was restricted to a minimum and performed by volunteers.
Later, in the 1980s, those occupied with the development of technical specifications organized themselves under the umbrella of the Internet Society in virtual organizations as the Internet Engineering Task Force, which were neither officially established nor being based on other structures than mailing lists and commitment, but nonetheless still serve as task forces for the development of standards ensuring the interoperability on the Net.
Since the late 80s and the early 90s, with the enormous growth of the Net - which was promoted by the invention of
Since the year 2000, a new model for technical coordination has been emerging: Formerly performed by several bodies, technical coordination is transferred to a single non-governmental organization: the Internet Coordination of Assigned Numbers and Names.
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The fact that corporate money is seeking to influence public policy is nothing unusual. From the different ways of how private money helps to shape politics the first, and most familiar is direct campaign contributions to political candidates and parties, which is especially widespread in the United States. While the second great river of money goes to underwrite lobbying apparatus in diverse state capitals, the third form of attempts to influence public policy making is less well-known, but nearly as wide and deep as the two others - it is money which underwrites a vast network of public policy think tanks and advocacy groups. Although tried to be labeled in another way, unmistakably, these donations are naked attempts by corporations and other donors, to influence the political process.
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Although advertising, public relations and think tanks at first seem to have nothing in common, after a closer look certain similarities arise.
The first thing which can be noted is that public relations and the advertising industry, as well as - especially conservative - think tanks like the Heritage Foundation or the Brookings Institute have strong ties to corporate firms. Whereas the connection between the advertising and public relations industry and corporations is based on a consultant - client relation many think tanks heavily rely on corporate funding to pursue their activities. Therefore the interests of corporate firms are to an - in some cases considerable - extent reflected in their activities.
Furthermore the aims of public relations and advertising firms and think tanks are not too different. Their main goal is to sell ideas and values. Albeit it sometimes makes the impression, as if only products, services and understanding (in the case of public relations) are sold, for the greater part the only thing being marketed is (political) ideology.
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CSIS is a private, tax-exempt and public policy research institution dedicated to policy analysis. It covers key functional areas such as international finance, emerging markets, U.S. domestic and economic policy and U.S. foreign policy and national security issues. Policy impact is the basic mission of CSIS. Its goal is to shape selected policy decisions in government and the private sector.
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held to be true, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, no financial support for further development was provided to him.
And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company.
Ronald L. Rivest is Webster Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT's EECS Department. He was one of three persons in a team to invent the