IANA/ICANN

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a board that was put into office in 1988 by ISOC and the U.S. Federal Network Council (FNC). Its mission is to guarantee the uniqueness of IP addresses. In 1999 IANA transferred its function to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Before that IANA basically consisted of one worker – Jon Postel, a long-time RFC editor. Originally SRI was responsible for the administration of all numeric addresses, based on a treaty with ARPA.
Since its founding in 1988 IANA manages the allocation of IP addresses, top level domains (.com, .de, .uk …) and IP protocol numbers and has the oversight of the main ports from 0 to 1023.
Therefore IANA transfers the local IP registration to “Regional Internet Registries“ (RIR), which are responsible for the allocation of IP addresses for a certain region in the world.

(ARIN for North America, RIPE for Europe, LACNIC for Latin America and the Caribbean, APNIC for Asia and the pacific region und AFRINIC for Africa).
Since ICANN is indirectly subordinate to the U.S. Department of Commerce, many proposals have been made to dissolve the “IANA function” from ICANN, and give it back to ISOC, because the Department of Commerce repeatedly tried to influence the ICANN work. Indisputable the control and administration of IP numbers and domain names plays an important role for the internet and thus for the whole information and communication community.