'Netheads' grapple with bugs in Internet
The guys who decide how the Internet should work (a few are women) want you to know they don't run the Internet. Nobody does.
Despite its tremendous influence on Web technology, the Internet Engineering Task Force goes to great lengths to be loosey-goosey, almost hippie-like. It is a purely voluntary group with no dues, no board of directors and no headquarters.
"Our mission is to make the Internet work better," said Russell Housley of Herndon, Va., one of some 1,200 engineers from the U.S. and 40 other countries who gathered in Chicago this week to swap ideas. Earlier this year, they met in Prague and later they will meet in Vancouver.
The engineers make suggestions in the form of technical language protocols with arcane acronyms like TCP and DKIM, and they've developed a system for reviewing, approving and publishing standards. But they have no power to enforce anything.
