Skip to main content

Science & Tech Quote by Jon Postel

"I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority, which is the central coordinator for the Internet address space, domain names and Internet protocol conventions essential to the use and operation of the Internet"

About this Quote

There is a quiet audacity in how casually Postel drops the word "also". It reads like a modest footnote, yet it smuggles in one of the most consequential facts about the modern world: for a long stretch of the Internet's formative years, a single human being effectively stewarded the plumbing that makes the whole system cohere. The intent is administrative clarity, almost bureaucratic in its dryness. The effect is something closer to a power reveal.

Postel’s phrasing frames the Internet not as a corporate product or a nation-state project, but as an engineered commons that still requires coordination. He names the three levers that matter - address space, domain names, protocol conventions - and in doing so, he sketches the Internet’s paradox: radically decentralized at the edges, tightly standardized at the core. The subtext is that trust, not just code, is a foundational protocol. Someone has to decide what counts as a valid name, a legitimate number, a shared rule.

Context sharpens the line. In the pre-ICANN era, IANA functioned less like a government agency and more like a widely respected caretaker operating on legitimacy earned through competence and community consent. Postel’s restraint signals that legitimacy: he doesn’t grandstand about authority; he normalizes it as service. That’s why the quote works. It’s a reminder that today’s seemingly inevitable, planet-scale connectivity began as a fragile social arrangement held together by technical rigor, personal credibility, and a surprisingly small circle of people willing to do unglamorous work correctly.

Quote Details

TopicInternet
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Postel, Jon. (2026, January 16). I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority, which is the central coordinator for the Internet address space, domain names and Internet protocol conventions essential to the use and operation of the Internet. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-also-administer-the-internet-assigned-names-96108/

Chicago Style
Postel, Jon. "I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority, which is the central coordinator for the Internet address space, domain names and Internet protocol conventions essential to the use and operation of the Internet." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-also-administer-the-internet-assigned-names-96108/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority, which is the central coordinator for the Internet address space, domain names and Internet protocol conventions essential to the use and operation of the Internet." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-also-administer-the-internet-assigned-names-96108/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Jon Add to List
I also administer the Internet Assigned Names Authority
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

Jon Postel

Jon Postel (August 6, 1943 - October 16, 1998) was a Scientist from USA.

26 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes