RFC 3271

The Internet is for Everyone

📅 published April 2002, from ietf

The Internet is for Everyone 🌈

okay bestie, this is RFC 3271 and the vibe is pure main character energy 💅 📄 RFC number: 3271. Category: Informational. Date: April 2002. Author: V. Cerf of the Internet Society ✨. Its header doesn't list any Obsoletes or Updates lines, so it doesn't replace or change any other RFC 🦋.

Status of This Memo 📝

this one is for the Internet community to read 🫶. it is NOT a standard, so nobody's building anything to it. you can share it as much as you want, no limits 🌸.

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved. 💜

Abstract ✨

this doc is basically the Internet Society spilling its whole ideology: the Internet really is for everyone 🌍. but here's the tea 🍵... it only becomes that if WE actually make it happen 💖.

1. The Internet is for everyone 🌈

ok, saying it is so easy, but actually doing it is so hard 😭. so how far have we come toward this goal? 🤔

the Internet has been doubling every year since 1988, and it's in its 14th year of that 🚀. there are over 150 million hosts on it now, and an estimated 513 million users worldwide 🌏.

by 2006, the global Internet will probably be bigger than the global telephone network, if it isn't already, because IP telephony basically made it the phone network 📞✨. and up to 1.5 billion Internet-enabled appliances could join the regular servers, desktops and laptops in the Internet family 🤖. pagers, cell phones and PDAs might all merge into one thing and become the main telecom tools of the next decade 📱. but even at phone-system scale, it's wild to realize that only half of Earth's population has ever made a phone call 😳.

commerce on the network is estimated to hit somewhere between $1.8T and $3.2T by 2003 💸. that's only two years away, but in Internet years that's a whole lifetime 💀.

the number of Internet users will likely pass 1000 million by the end of 2005, which is only about 16% of the world's population 🌍. by 2047 the world's population might be around 11 billion 👀. if only 25% of everyone then is online, that's nearly 3 billion users 🫢.

as high-bandwidth access becomes normal through digital subscriber loops, cable modems, and digital terrestrial and satellite radio links, all the media on the Internet will start to converge, and it's gonna be super obvious 📺🎧. TV, radio, phone, and print media will all get Internet counterparts, and software will turn those one-way media into interactive stuff that lots of people can share 🔥.

the Internet is honestly one of the most powerful amplifiers of speech ever invented 📣💜. it gives a global megaphone to voices that might otherwise only be heard faintly, if at all 🦋. it invites and supports multiple viewpoints and conversations in ways the old one-way mass media just couldn't do 🫶.

the Internet can also help democracy in unexpected ways 🗳️. did you know proxy voting for stock shareholders is now commonly supported online?? 🤯 maybe we can find more ways to simplify and expand the voting franchise in other areas, including politics, as Internet access grows 🌸.

the Internet is becoming the archive of everything we've accomplished as a society 📚. it's kind of a messy "Boswell" of the human spirit 🧚. so be thoughtful about what you put in email, newsgroups, and other Internet channels, because it might pop up in a web search someday 🙈. thanks to online access to shared repositories and databases, research is moving faster too 🚀.

the Internet is moving OFF the planet!! 🪐 interplanetary Internet is already part of NASA's Mars mission program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 🛰️. by 2008 we should have a working Earth-Mars network that acts as the early backbone of an interplanetary system of Internets. InterPlaNet is a network of Internets!! 🤯 eventually we'll have interplanetary Internet relays in polar solar orbit so they can see most of the planets, and their interplanetary gateways for most, if not all, of the time 🌌.

the Internet Society is launching a new campaign to help people get access to the Internet and use it everywhere 📣. the campaign slogan is "Internet is for everyone," but there's still a lot of work to do to make that real 🫶.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if it isn't affordable for everyone who wants to use its services 💸. so we have to commit to making the Internet as affordable as other infrastructure that's critical to our well-being 🏠. while we ride Moore's Law to make Internet-enabling equipment cheaper, let's also push for regulatory policies that use the power of competition to bring costs down 📉.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if Governments restrict access to it 🚫. so we have to commit to keeping the network unrestricted, unfettered and unregulated 🕊️. we must have the freedom to speak AND the freedom to hear 🗣️👂.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if it can't keep up with the explosive demand for its services 📈. so we have to commit to continuing its technological evolution and to developing the technical standards that lie at the heart of the Internet revolution ⚙️. let's commit to supporting the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Engineering Steering Group, the Internet Research Task Force, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and other organizations building Internet technology as they drive us toward an unbounded future 🚀. let's also support the work of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which is a key function for the Internet's operation 🫡.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be until the Internet can be accessed without limitation, at any time and in every language, in every home, every business, every school, every library, every hospital, in every town and in every country on the Globe 🏡🏫🏥🌎.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if it's too complex for everyone to use easily 🧩. so let's commit to simplifying the Internet's interfaces and to educating everyone who's interested in using it 🎓.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if laws around the world turn into a tangle of incompatible rules that slow down electronic commerce, block the protection of intellectual property, and choke freedom of expression and the growth of market economies ⚖️😤. let's commit to building a global legal framework where laws work across national borders, to strengthen the upward spiral of value the Internet can create 🌀💰.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if its users can't protect their privacy and the confidentiality of their transactions on the network 🔐. so we commit to the idea that cryptographic technology strong enough to protect privacy from unauthorized disclosure should be freely available, usable, and exportable 🗝️. and since authenticity is at the heart of trust in networked environments, let's commit to building authentication methods and systems that can support electronic commerce over the Internet 🫶.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if parents and teachers can't voluntarily create protected spaces for young people for whom the full range of Internet content may still be inappropriate 🧸. let's build technologies and practices that give this protective flexibility to the people who take on the responsibility of providing it 🛡️.

Internet is for everyone, but it won't be if we aren't responsible in how we use it and mindful of the rights of others who share its wealth 💜. so let's commit to using this new medium responsibly, with the understanding that the freedoms the Internet enables come with a matching responsibility to use these powerful enablers with care and consideration 🌸. for people who choose to abuse these privileges, let's commit to building the tools needed to fight the abuse and punish the abuser 🚨.

Internet is for everyone... even Martians!! 👽🛸

I hope Internauts everywhere will join the Internet Society and like-minded organizations to reach this goal, which is easy to say but hard to achieve 🫶. as we pass the milestone of the beginning of the third millennium, what better theme could we ask for than making the Internet the medium of this new millennium? 🎀

Internet IS for everyone, but it won't be unless WE make it so 💖✨.

2. Security Considerations 🔐

this doc doesn't really cover security stuff, except that it mentions cryptographic techniques can protect confidentiality and privacy 🗝️.

3. References 📚

[1] Internet Society - www.isoc.org

[2] Internet Engineering Task Force - www.ietf.org

[3] Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - www.ICANN.org

[4] Cerf's slides: www.wcom.com/cerfsup

[5] Interplanetary Internet - www.ipnsig.org

[6] Internet history - livinginternet.com

4. Author's Addresses 💌

Vint Cerf
former Chairman and President, Internet Society
January 2002

Sr. Vice President, Internet Architecture and Technology
WorldCom
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147

EMail: vinton.g.cerf@wcom.com

the legal bits, verbatim so nothing gets lost 🫡:

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).  All Rights Reserved.

This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works.  However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.

The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns.

This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Acknowledgement 🫶

funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society 💜✨.

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