Communications of the ACM
A Father Knows Best: Vint Cerf Re-Thinks the Internet in Stanford Talk
Improving Internet security requires a delicate balance between freedom and control, Google's Vint Cerf told a Stanford Engineering audience.
Credit: L.A. Cicero / Stanford University
Google chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the 1970s, recently gave a speech at Stanford University in which he discussed the need to rethink the Internet to handle the growing demand of smartphones and the emerging Internet of things, in which nearly every electronic device would be networked. Cerf says the Internet of things could lead to breakthroughs in energy efficiency and other issues that face modern society. "The Internet was just not designed for the way we use it today," he says. "We had no way to anticipate billions of personal computers, much less smartphones that are far smarter and infinitely more mobile than the classroom-size computers of the time."
The Internet protocol (IP) naming system developed by Cerf and Bob Kahn allows for about 1 billion IP addresses, but Cerf says the world needs billions of IP addresses as personal computers and smartphones become more common and widely distributed.
Internet security is another area where the modern system is failing. The modern practice is to create firewalls to protect against outside forces, but Cerf says firewalls are leaky and prone to attack from within. As security improves, developers need to be careful to maintain user freedom, he says. The fact that the Internet allows people to gather and publish information with the option to remain anonymous has been a driving force behind the Internet, he notes.
From Stanford University
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