When you hear the word Internet, what comes to your mind? Opportunity? Social media ? Information? There is almost no wrong answer because the Internet can be associated with many concepts. It is a complex, diverse and dynamic ecosystem. In other words, It is a successful, performing tool that allows anyone who has the opportunity to access to it to connect, share, learn, innovate and much more. The Internet radically transformed our lives for the better, but what makes it great also makes it vulnerable unless we work to enforce his strength and his resilience.

At the speed at which the Internet is evolving, it is very important to understand the way it operates in order to be able to contribute and get involved in its current evolution.

The Internet owes its success not only to the technology, but to the way it is working. It was not built by accident: it was built to be built upon. And its way of networking has been a constant foundation for its success from the beginning. Using the Internet Way of Networking will help us to ensure tomorrow’s internet is open for everyone and vibrant.

The Internet has many properties, but the critical ones are literally the most important aspects that had contributed to his construction and continue to moderate his growth.

These are the five critical properties of the Internet:

1. An Accessible Infrastructure with a Common Protocol that is open and has low barriers to entry

2. Open Architecture of Interoperable and Reusable Building Blocks based on open standards development processes voluntarily adopted by a user community

3. Decentralized Management and a Single Distributed Routing System which is scalable and agile

4. Common Global Identifiers which are unambiguous and universal

5. A Technology Neutral, General-Purpose Network which is simple and adaptable.

Those properties are necessary for the Internet’s healthy evolution and convey what makes the Internet unique.

To summarize, the Internet offers infinite resources and opportunities to work together for our benefit and especially for the collective good, but it is our responsibility to recognize and protect what makes it unique. It is up to all of us to protect and enhance the future of the Internet.