RFC 2057 (rfc2057) - Page 3 of 20

Source Directed Access Control on the Internet

RFC 2057             Source Directed Access Control        November 1996


   In addition to these organizations, there are a variety of other
   formal and informal groups that develop standards and agreements
   about specialized or emerging areas of the Internet.   For example,
   the World Wide Web Consortium has developed agreements and standards
   for the Web.

   None of these organizations controls, governs, runs, or pays for the
   Internet.  None of these organizations controls the substantive
   content available on the Internet.  None of these organizations has
   the power or authority to require content providers to alter, screen,
   or restrict access to content on the Internet other than content that
   they themselves create.

   Beyond the standards setting process, the only Internet functions
   that are centralized are the allocation of numeric addresses to
   networks and the registration of "domain names."  Three entities
   around the world share responsibility for ensuring that each network
   and computer on the Internet has a unique 32-bit numeric "IP" address
   (such as 123.32.22.132), and for ensuring that all "domain names"
   (such as "harvard.edu") are unique.  InterNIC allocates IP addresses
   for the Americas, and has counterparts in Europe and Asia.  InterNIC
   allocates large blocks of IP addresses to major Internet providers,
   who in turn allocate smaller blocks to smaller Internet providers
   (who in turn allocate even smaller blocks to other providers or end
   users).  InterNIC does not, however, reliably receive information on
   who receives each numeric IP address, and thus cannot provide any
   central database of computer addresses.  In addition, a growing
   number of computers access the Internet indirectly through address
   translating devices such as application "firewalls".  With these
   devices the IP address used by a computer on the "inside" of the
   firewall is translated to another IP address for transmission over
   the Internet.  The IP address used over the Internet can be
   dynamically assigned from a pool of available IP addresses at the
   time that a communication is initiated.  In this case the IP
   addresses used inside the firewall is not required to be globally
   unique and the IP addresses used over the Internet do not uniquely
   identify a specific computer.  Neither the InterNIC nor its
   counterparts in Europe and Asia control the substantive content
   available on the Internet, nor do they have the power or authority to
   require content providers to alter, screen, or restrict access to
   content on the Internet.










Bradner                      Informational