Communications of the ACM
Daily Dozen: 12 Questions For Vint Cerf, “father of the Internet”
Vint Cerf chats about Internet Security, critical thinking, and too much email.
Credit: Joi Ito/Wikimedia Commons
In today’s Daily Dozen, I directed my 12 questions at Vint Cerf, the Internet pioneer and Google exec who is often called "the father of the Internet."
Cerf, a vice president at Google and its chief Internet evangelist for 10 years now, is one of those rare industry figures who has secured a place in the history books. Along with former Stanford scientist Robert Kahn, Cerf designed the TCP/IP Internet network protocol, the technology on which the Internet is built and the one that made possible its earliest incarnation, known as ARPANET, back in the 1970s. Their 1973/1974 paper, "A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection" is in many respects its cornerstone.
But Cerf, Kahn and other early 1970s connectivity pioneers could not possibly have envisioned the wholesale societal transformation that has come to pass as a result of such Internet communications protocols. Or could they?
I wanted to know what it’s like for Cerf to survey the Internet in light of what came before. It’s been awhile since we talked, and I was pleased and relieved to see he was pretty much the same as I’d left him — still as outspoken, opinionated and candid as ever. Here’s what he had to say:
Q. What surprises you?
Cerf: The influx of content on the web. The fact that millions of people want to share what they know is surprising; the advent of things like Wikipedia was surprising to me. I had not expected to see this level of interest in sharing knowledge. I’ve been pleasantly surprised.
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