ISOC

A professional membership organization founded in 1992 and dedicated to supporting the growth and evolution of the Internet. It is comprised of the companies, government agencies, and foundations that created the Internet and its technologies, as well as innovative new entrepreneurial organizations dedicated to maintaining this dynamic. 

The society provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and it is the organizational home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

Historical perspective: Vinton Cerf, President of the Internet Society (ISOC) and co-creator of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), is considered the "father of the Internet." TCP/IP enables computers to talk to each other over the Internet, and Dr. Cerf proved that a network could reconfigure itself so that no communications are lost. He did this by simulating the breakup of the Defense Department's Internet network, "gluing" it back together using mobile radios in Strategic Air command aircraft. Dr. Cerf is also chairman of ICANN. Together with Robert Kahn, a fellow computer scientist, Cerf spent eight years working on Internet infrastructure at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives. Previously at MCI in the 1980s, Cerf wrote MCI Mail, an early e-mail program. Mr. Cerf later worked at Google as Chief Internet Evangelist.