VINT CERF

'Vinton Gray Cerf' (born June 23, 1943) () is an American computer scientist who is commonly referred to as one of the ''"founding fathers of the Internet"'' for his key technical and managerial role, together with Bob Kahn, in the creation of the Internet and the TCP/IP protocols which it uses.
He was also a co-founder (in 1992) of the Internet Society (ISOC), which is intended to both promote the views of ordinary users of the Internet, and also serve as an umbrella body for the technical groups developing the Internet (such as the Internet Engineering Task Force). He served as the first president of the Internet Society from 1992-1995, served on the board of trustees through the end of 2001, and served as chairman of the board from 1998 to 1999.
He has a hearing impairment, and serves on the board of Gallaudet University, the first school of higher learning for the deaf and hard-of-hearing; he received an award from the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He and his family currently reside in Virginia.

Contents

Career

Other activities

Awards and honors

Partial bibliography

See also

Notes

External links

News articles

Career

Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut. As a teenager, he attended Van Nuys High School in suburban Los Angeles, CA. After expressing an early interest in computers, he attended Stanford University, taking summer jobs at a number of companies such as North American Aviation and Rocketdyne. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Stanford in 1965.
After graduation, he went to work for IBM, but soon decided that he wanted to learn more about computers. In 1967, he returned to school, enrolling in UCLA's computer science program, where he was a student under Gerald Estrin. Leonard Kleinrock was on his thesis committee and Cerf worked in Kleinrock's Network Measurement Center as a principal programmer while studying for his advanced degrees. He received Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees in 1970 and 1972.
While at UCLA, he worked on the ARPANET, the earliest packet switched computer network. During this period (as well as later), he was the author of several RFCs. He continued working on computer networks when he became a professor at Stanford University in 1972.
Shortly thereafter, in 1973, Bob Kahn (whom Cerf already knew, since Kahn had been the principal architect of the ARPANET Interface Message Processor (IMP) project as its prime contractor, Bolt, Beranek and Newman) and Cerf started thinking about how to connect together several different packet switching networks, into what we now call an internetwork. Their 1974 paper, ''A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication'' is now recognized as the fundamental document in this (then-new) field.
Soon afterwards, in 1976, he was asked to move to the United States Department of home sucurity's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to run the research and development program in this area. During his tenure, from 1976 to 1982, he played a key role in leading the development of the TCP/IP protocols and the Internet. Rumor has it that the term "Surfing the net" originated from the first data sent over the internet by Vint Cerf during his time at the DOD, but this is just an urban myth. Jean Armour Polly popularized the term "surfing the net" in an essay and the founders of CERFNET originally intended it to be spelled SURFNET but that name was taken by a Dutch research company, so they called themselves the California Education and Research Foundation Network or CERFNET.
After that, as vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982 to 1986, he led the engineering of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.
Cerf then rejoined Kahn at the latter's Corporation for National Research Initiatives in 1986, staying until 1994. While there, he worked on a number of projects, such as digital libraries and knowbots. He returned to MCI in 1994, as the Senior Vice President of Internet Architecture and Technology Strategy.
On September 8, 2005 Google Inc. announced that it hired Cerf as "Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist."^[1][2][3]

Other activities

Cerf joined the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 1999, and is serving a term until the end of 2007; he is currently the ICANN Chair.
Cerf is a member of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov's IT Advisory Council, assigned with a Presidential Decree on March 8, 2002.^[4] He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Eurasia Group, the political risk consultancy.
Cerf is also working on the Interplanetary Internet, together with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It will be a new standard to communicate from planet to planet, using radio/laser communications that are highly tolerant to signal degradation.^[5] More about the protocols used in this project can be found at.^[6]
In February 2006, Cerf testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation's Hearing on “Network Neutrality”.^[7]
Cerf currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.

Awards and honors

Cerf has received a number of honorary degrees, including doctorates, from the University of the Balearic Islands, ETH in Switzerland, Capitol College, Gettysburg College, George Mason University, University of Pisa, University of Rovira and Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Lulea (Sweden), University of Twente (Netherlands), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Brooklyn Polytechnic.
Further awards include:


★ Prince of Asturias award for science and technology

★ Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery

★ Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award

★ SIGCOMM Award for "contributions to the Internet [spanning] more than 25 years, from development of the fundamental TCP/IP protocols".

★ In December 1997 he, along with his partner Robert E. Kahn, was presented with the National Medal of Technology by President Bill Clinton, for their contributions towards the creation of the Internet and TCP/IP.

★ He received the Living Legend Medal from the Library of Congress in April 2000

★ Dr. Cerf was selected as a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS)in 2000

★ Cerf and Kahn were the winners of the Turing Award for 2004, for their "pioneering work on internetworking, including .. the Internet's basic communications protocols .. and for inspired leadership in networking."

★ In November 2005, Cerf and Kahn were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush for their contributions to the creation of the Internet. ^[8]

★ He and Robert Kahn were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2006.

Partial bibliography

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Zero Text Length EOF Message'' (RFC 13, August 1969)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''IMP-IMP and HOST-HOST Control Links'' (RFC 18, September 1969)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''ASCII format for network interchange'' (RFC 20, October 1969)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Host-host control message formats'' (RFC 22, October 1969)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Data transfer protocols'' (RFC 163, May 1971)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''PARRY encounters the DOCTOR'' (RFC 439, January 1973)

★ Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, ''A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication'' (IEEE Transactions on Communications, May 1974)

★ Vinton Cerf, Y. dalal, C. Sunshine, ''Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program'' (RFC 675, December 1974)

★ Vinton Cerf, Jon Postel, ''Mail transition plan'' (RFC 771, September 1980)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Twas the night before start-up'' (RFC 968, December 1985)

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Report of the second Ad Hoc Network Management Review Group'', RFC 1109, August 1989

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Internet Activities Board'', RFC 1120, September 1989

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Thoughts on the National Research and Education Network'', RFC 1167, July 1990

★ Vinton Cerf, K.L. Mills ''Explaining the role of GOSIP'', RFC 1169, August 1990

★ Vinton Cerf, "Networks", ''Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks'', September, 1991

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Guidelines for Internet Measurement Activities'', October 1991

★ Clark, Chapin, Cerf, Braden, Hobby, ''Towards the Future Internet Architecture'', RFC 1287, December 1991

★ Vinton Cerf et al, ''A Strategic Plan for Deploying an Internet X.500 Directory Service'', RFC 1430, February 1993

★ Vinton Cerf, ''A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY'', RFC 1607, April 1, 1994

★ Vinton Cerf, ''An Agreement between the Internet Society and Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the Matter of ONC RPC and XDR Protocols'', RFC 1790, April 1995

★ Vinton Cerf, ''I REMEMBER IANA'', RFC 2468, October 1998

★ Vinton Cerf, ''Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR'', RFC 1217, April 1 1999

★ Vinton Cerf & Bob Kahn, ''Al Gore and the Internet,'' 2000-09-28 [1]

★ Vinton Cerf, ''The Internet is for Everyone'', RFC 3271, April 2002

See also

★ History of the Internet

Notes

1. Google
2. Vice President Google
3. Vint Cerf: Google's New Idea Man
4. Presidential
5. The InterPlaNetary Internet Project IPN Special Interest Group
6. The Delay and Disruption Tolerant Protocol Research Group
7. Testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce
8. 2005 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients.

External links

★ Internet Pioneers - Vint Cerf

★ ICANN Board of Directors - Vinton G. Cerf

★ Dr.Cerf is in advisory Board with CTIS

★

★ Hard of Hearing Father of Internet

★ ICANNWiki on Vint Cerf

★ Vint Cerf on "Freedom of the Internet", 45 mins., official web stream of presentation for hungarian "TV University", March 2007

★ Vint Cerf's profile on LinkedIn

News articles

★ Vinton Cerf on the future of e-mail Nov 09, 2001

★ Cerf wins Turing Award Feb 16, 2005

★ Cerf's up at Google Sep 8, 2005

★ Computing Pioneers Discuss the State of the Net - Aug 22, 2005 audio interview

★ Dr. Vinton Cerf of Google to present at the City Club of Cleveland May 05, 2006

★ Short video interview with National Business Review, New Zealand

★ Vint Cerf's interview at Podcast Network