Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit > About the Internet Way of Networking

About the Internet Way of Networking

This is the Internet Society’s definition of the basic architecture and practices of the Internet.

The Internet provides the foundation for most of our digital lives. From communication tools to e-commerce, everything was built on top of a set of practices, rules, and technical standards. But what makes it so reliable and full of potential?

The Internet Society describes it as “The Internet Way of Networking.”

Where Does the Internet Way of Networking Come From?

The Internet as we know it is a set of choices. When it’s working as intended, any user can visit any part of it, no matter where they are in the world. Services and applications can be built on top of it, and connect with others that follow the same rules and norms.

The Internet Way of Networking (or IWN) is the Internet Society’s description of the basic architecture and practices of the Internet. In 2019, we needed a framework that would help our community of experts and advocates to analyze decisions and policies that would affect those practices and ways of connecting. We wanted to encourage the Internet community to start adding impact assessments to their advocacy work—similar to Environmental Impact Assessments.

When we completed the work to define what makes the Internet work as a global network, we realized it wasn’t enough just to protect the basic technical architecture, we needed to offer a framework for more than just survival. What makes the Internet thrive?

What Are the Enablers and Critical Properties, and What’s the Difference?

The critical properties describe the technical aspects that define the choice to interconnect with the Internet, as opposed to any of the many other possible approaches to computer networking. Every one of the more than 70,000 networks that make up the global Internet aims to maintain and support its core architecture.

The technical rules are necessary but not sufficient. The enablers allow the Internet community to go further.

An Internet that follows the same networking rules isn’t necessarily secure, affordable, or available everywhere. So we added four goals that make up our vision for what the Internet can be—open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy—and a series of what we call “enablers.” These are operating principles that bring us closer to the goals.

They’re both ideals to work toward, and together, they create a picture of what a healthy Internet looks like.