Cerf, Vinton D.

Cerf, Vinton D.

(1943–  ) American

Computer Scientist

Vinton (Vint) Cerf is a key pioneer in the development of the packet-switched networking technology that is the basis for the Internet. In high school, Cerf distinguished himself from his classmates by wearing a jacket and a tie and car-rying a large brown briefcase, which he later described as “maybe a nerd’s way of being different.” He has a lifelong love for fantasy and science fiction, both of which explore difference. Finally, Cerf was set apart by being hearing-impaired as a result of a birth defect. He would overcome this handicap through a combination of hearing aids and communications strategies. And while he was fascinated by chemistry and rocketry, it would be communications, math, and computer science that would form his lifelong interest.

After graduating from Stanford in 1965 with a B.S. in mathematics, Cerf worked at IBM as an engineer on its time-sharing systems, while broadening his background in computer science. At UCLA he earned on M.S. and then a Ph.D. in computer science while working on technology that could link one computer to another. Soon he was work-ing with Len Kleinrock’s Network Measurement Center to plan the ARPA network, a government-sponsored computer link. In designing software to simulate a network that as yet existed only on paper, Cerf and his colleagues had to explore the issues of network load, response time, queuing, and routing, which would prove fundamental for the real-world networks to come.

By the summer of 1968, four universities and research sites (UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, the University of Utah, and SRI) as well as the firm BBN (Bolt Beranek and Newman) were trying to develop a network. At the time, a custom combination of hardware and software had to be devised to connect each center’s computer to the other. The hard-ware, a refrigerator-sized interface called an IMP, was still in development.

By 1970, the tiny four-node network was in operation, cobbled together with software that allowed a user on one machine to log in to another. This was a far cry from a system that would allow any computer to seamlessly com-municate with another, however. What was needed on the software end was a universal, consistent language—a pro-tocol—that any computer could use to communicate with any other computer on the network.

In a remarkable display of cooperation, Cerf and his colleagues in the Network Working Group set out to design such a system. The fundamental idea of the protocol is that data to be transmitted would be turned into a stream of “packets.” Each packet would have addressing information that would enable it to be routed across the network and then reassembled back into proper sequence at the desti-nation. Just as the Post Office doesn’t need to know what’s in a letter to deliver it, the network doesn’t need to know whether the data it is handling is e-mail, a news article, or something else entirely. The message could be assembled and handed over to a program that would know what to do with it.

With the development of what eventually became TCP/ IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn essentially became the fathers of the Internet we know today (see Tcp/Ip). As the online world began to grow in the 1980s, Cerf worked with MCI in the development of its electronic mail system, and then set up systems to coordinate Internet researchers.

In later years, Cerf undertook new initiatives in the development of the Internet. He was a key founder and the first president of the Internet Society in 1992, serving in that post until 1995 and then as chairman of the board, 1998– 1999. This group seeks to plan for expansion and change as the Internet becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Cerf’s interest in science fiction came full circle in 1998 when he joined an effort at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. There they are designing an “inter-planetary Internet” that would allow a full network connec-tion between robot space probes, astronauts, and eventual colonists on Mars and elsewhere in the solar system.

In 2005 Cerf joined Google as its “chief Internet evan-gelist,” where he has the opportunity to apply his imagina-tion to network applications and access policies. Cerf also served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a position that he left in 2007.

Cerf has received numerous honors, including the IEEE Kobayashi Award (1992), International Telecommunications Union Silver Medal (1995), and the National Medal of Tech-nology (1997). In 2005 Cerf (along with Robert Kahn) was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.