Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf is an American internet pioneer, who is recognized as one of "the
fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American engineer Bob Kahn.
His contributions have been acknowledged and lauded, repeatedly, with honorary degrees
and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, the Marconi Prize and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.
In the early days, Cerf was a program manager for the United States Department of Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency funding various groups to develop TCP/IP technology.
When the Internet began to transition to a commercial opportunity during the late 1980s,
Cerf moved to MCI where he was instrumental in the development of the first commercial
email system connected to the Internet.
Cerf was instrumental in the funding and formation of ICANN from the start.
He waited in the wings for a year before he stepped forward to join the ICANN Board, eventually
becoming chairman.
He was elected as the president of the Association for Computing Machinery in May 2012, and in
August 2013 he joined the Council on CyberSecurity's Board of Advisors.
Cerf is also known for his sartorial style, typically appearing in three-piece suit—a
rarity in an industry known for its casual dress norms.
Life and career Cerf was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the
son of Muriel, a housewife, and Vinton Thurston Cerf, an aerospace executive.
Cerf went to Van Nuys High School along with Jon Postel and Steve Crocker; he wrote the
former's obituary.
Both were also instrumental in the creation of the Internet.
Cerf's first job after obtaining his B.S. degree in Mathematics from Stanford University
was at IBM, where he worked for two years as a systems engineer supporting QUIKTRAN.
He left IBM to attend graduate school at UCLA where he earned his M.S. degree in 1970 and
his PhD degree in 1972.
During his graduate student years, he studied under Professor Gerald Estrin, worked in Professor
Leonard Kleinrock's data packet networking group that connected the first two nodes of
the ARPANet, the predecessor to the Internet, and "contributed to a host-to-host protocol"
for the ARPANet.
While at UCLA, he also met Robert E. Kahn, who was working on the ARPANet hardware architecture.
After receiving his doctorate, Cerf became an assistant professor at Stanford University
from 1972–1976, where he conducted research on packet network interconnection protocols
and co-designed the DoD TCP/IP protocol suite with Kahn.
Cerf then moved to DARPA in 1976, where he stayed until 1982.
As vice president of MCI Digital Information Services from 1982 to 1986, Cerf led the engineering
of MCI Mail, the first commercial email service to be connected to the Internet.
Cerf rejoined MCI during 1994 and served as Senior Vice President of Technology Strategy.
In this role, he helped to guide corporate strategy development from a technical perspective.
Previously, he served as MCI's senior vice president of Architecture and Technology,
leading a team of architects and engineers to design advanced networking frameworks,
including Internet-based solutions for delivering a combination of data, information, voice
and video services for business and consumer use.
In 1992 Cerf and Bob Kahn co-founded the Internet Society to provide leadership in education,
policy, and standards related to the Internet.
During 1997, Cerf joined the Board of Trustees of Gallaudet University, a university for
the education of the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
Cerf himself is hard of hearing.
He has also served on the university's Board of Associates.
Vint Cerf criticized as leader of MCI's internet business.
MCI was providing the IP addresses used by Send-Safe.com, a vendor of spamware that uses
a botnet in order to send spam, and refused to terminate the spamware vendor.
At the time, Spamhaus also listed MCI as the ISP with the most Spamhaus Block List listings.
Cerf has worked for Google as a Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist since October
2005.
In this function he has become well known for his predictions on how technology will
affect future society, encompassing such areas as artificial intelligence, environmentalism,
the advent of IPv6 and the transformation of the television industry and its delivery
model.
Since 2010, Cerf has served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development,
a UN body which aims to make broadband internet technologies more widely available.
Cerf joined the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers in 1999, and
served until November 2007.
Cerf was a member of the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov's IT Advisory Council.
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 tolerant of signal degradations including variable delay and disruption caused, for
example, by celestial motion.
On February 7, 2006, Cerf testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation's hearing on network neutrality.
Speaking as Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, Cerf noted that nearly half of all consumers
lacked meaningful choice in broadband providers and expressed concerns that without network
neutrality government regulation, broadband providers would be able to use their dominance
to limit options for consumers and charge companies like Google for their use of bandwidth.
Cerf currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an
organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.
He also serves on the advisory council of CRDF Global and was on the International Multilateral
Partnership Against Cyber Threats International Advisory Board.
Cerf is on the board of trustees of ARIN, the Regional Internet Registry of IP addresses
for United States, Canada, and part of the Caribbean.
Cerf chairs the board of directors of StopBadware, a non-profit anti-malware organization that
started as a project at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
Cerf is on the board of advisors to The Liquid Information Company Ltd of the UK, which works
to make the web more usefully interactive and which has produced the Mac OS X utility
called ‘Liquid'.
During 2008 Cerf chaired the Internationalized domain name working group of the IETF.
In 2008 Cerf was a major contender to be designated the US's first Chief Technology Officer by
President Barack Obama.
Cerf is the co-chair of Campus Party Silicon Valley, the US edition of one of the largest
technology festivals in the world, along with Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee.
From 2009-2011, Cerf was an elected member of the Governing Board of the Smart Grid Interoperability
Panel.
SGIP is a public-private consortium established by NIST in 2009 and provides a forum for businesses
and other stakeholder groups to participate in coordinating and accelerating development
of standards for the evolving Smart Grid.
Cerf was elected to a two year term as President of the Association for Computing Machinery
beginning July 1, 2012.
On January 16, 2013, US President Barack Obama announced his intent to appoint Cerf to the
National Science Board.
Awards and honors
Cerf has received a number of honorary degrees, including doctorates, from the University
of the Balearic Islands, ETHZ in Zurich, Switzerland, Capitol College, Gettysburg College, Yale
University, George Mason University, Marymount University, University of Pisa, University
of Rovira and Virgili, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Luleå University of Technology,
University of Twente, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Brooklyn Polytechnic,
UPCT, Royal Roads University Polytechnic University of Madrid and Keio University.
Further awards include: Edward A. Dickson Alumnus of the Year Award
from UCLA Prince of Asturias award for science and technology
Fellow of the IEEE, 1988, "for contributions and leadership in the design, development,
and application of internet protocols" Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery,
1994, for "vision and leadership in the design, implementation, evolution, and dissemination
of the TCP/IP computer communication protocol suite"
Yuri Rubinsky Memorial Award, 1996 SIGCOMM Award for "contributions to the Internet
[spanning] more than 25 years, from development of the fundamental TCP/IP protocols".
Certificate of Merit from The Franklin Institute, in 1996.
In December 1997 he, along with his partner Robert E. Kahn, was presented with the National
Medal of Technology by President Bill Clinton, "for creating and sustaining development of
Internet Protocols and continuing to provide leadership in the emerging industry of internetworking."
He received the Living Legend Medal from the Library of Congress in April 2000
In 2000, he was made a Fellow of the Computer History Museum "for his contributions to computer
architecture, operating systems, and software engineering."
Cerf was selected as a Fellow of the Association for Women in Science 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, Vinton Cerf and Kahn were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom
by President George W. Bush for their contributions to the creation of the Internet.
He and Robert Kahn were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2006
Vinton Cerf was awarded the St. Cyril and Methodius in the Coat of Arms Order in July
2006 Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn were each inducted
as an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication in May 2006
He and Robert Kahn were awarded the Japan Prize in January 2008.
Cerf was inducted into the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists and given the
Freedom of the City of London in April 2008.
Dr. Cerf was awarded an honorary membership in the Yale Political Union after keynoting
a lively debate on the subject "Resolved: Online Communities are Real Communities."
The motion passed.
In celebration of the five year-anniversary of YouTube he was selected as a guest curator
by the site, and chose the six videos on YouTube he found most memorable.
In May 2011, he was awarded an HPI Fellowship as “[...]a tribute to his work for a new
medium which influenced the everyday life of our society like no other one.”
In September 2011 he was made a distinguished fellow of British Computer Society, in recognition
of his outstanding contribution and service to the advancement of computing.
2012 Internet Hall of Fame In 2013, Cerf was one of five Internet and
Web pioneers awarded the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.
In 2014, Cerf was awarded the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 1st class for his
role in invention of TCP/IP by president of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves
In 2014, Cerf was awarded Officer of the French Légion d'honneur
Partial bibliography
Author Zero Text Length EOF Message
IMP-IMP and HOST-HOST Control Links ASCII format for network interchange
Host-host control message formats Data transfer protocols
PARRY encounters the DOCTOR 'Twas the night before start-up
Report of the second Ad Hoc Network Management Review Group, RFC 1109, August 1989
Internet Activities Board, RFC 1120, September 1989
Thoughts on the National Research and Education Network, RFC 1167, July 1990
Networks, Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks,
September, 1991 Guidelines for Internet Measurement Activities,
October 1991 A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY, RFC 1607, April
1, 1994 An Agreement between the Internet Society
and Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the Matter of ONC RPC and XDR Protocols, RFC 1790, April
1995 I REMEMBER IANA, RFC 2468, October 17, 1998
Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion Research (CSCR, RFC 1217, April 1, 1999
The Internet is for Everyone, RFC 3271, April 2002
Co-author Vinton Cerf, Robert Kahn, A Protocol for Packet
Network Intercommunication Vinton Cerf, Y.
Dalal, C. Sunshine, Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program
Vinton Cerf, Jon Postel, Mail transition plan Vinton Cerf, K.L.
Mills Explaining the role of GOSIP, RFC 1169, August 1990
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 & Bob Kahn, Al Gore and the Internet, 2000-09-28
Vinton Cerf et al., Internet Radio Communication System July 9, 2002, U.S. Patent 6,418,138
Vinton Cerf et al., System for Distributed Task Execution June 3, 2003, U.S. Patent 6,574,628
Vinton Cerf et al., Delay-Tolerant Networking Architecture, RFC 4838, April 2007
References
External links Media related to Vint Cerf at Wikimedia Commons
Internet Pioneers – Vint Cerf ICANNWiki on Vint Cerf
A Protocol For Packet Network Intercommunication – The May 1974 IEEE Transactions on Communications
paper Cerf co-wrote with Bob Kahn that describes TCP.
Archive of 'Cerf's Up' web pages while at MCI, Inc., 1982-1986.
Oral history interview with Vinton G. Cerf, by Judy O'Neill, Charles Babbage Institute,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990.
Cerf describes his involvement with the ARPA network, including his work for the Network
Measurement Center at UCLA, and his relationships with Bolt Beranek and Newman, Robert Kahn,
Lawrence Roberts, and the Network Working Group.
Aso discusses development of the TCP/IP protocol, IPTO funding at Stanford University, his decision
in 1976 to become a program manager for networking projects at IPTO, and the military use of
IPTO networking projects.
Vint Cerf on "Freedom of the Internet", 45 mins., official web stream of presentation
for Hungarian "TV University", March 2007 Vint Cerf lecture "Tracking the Internet into
the 21st century", 2007 Interview about Google and the future of the
internet on Entitled Opinions with Robert P. Harrison, November 2008.
Vint Cerf video lecture "Mobile and the Interplanetary Internet", at Aarhus University, Denmark,
2009 Vint Cerf video lecture "The Internet in 2035",
2009 Vint Cerf audio interview on The History of
the Internet: Part I – Past – 16 minutes.
Precursors & origins of the Internet Vint Cerf audio interview on The History of
the Internet: Part II – Present – 18 minutes.
Internet Neutrality, Cloud Computing, Open Source / Collaboration
Vint Cerf audio interview on The History of the Internet: Part III – Future – 12
minutes.
NASA's Interplanetary Internet, Speech & Gestural Interfaces, Quantum Entanglement
Vinton Cerf at PTC'09 Conference, January 2009, video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Keynote Speaker at Internet Librarian 2009, October 2009
Father Knows Best, an interview with Vint Cerf on Innovation, July 2011.
Part 1, Part 2.
"Google’s Cerf Says 'Privacy May Be An Anomaly'.
Historically, He’s Right.", Gregory Ferenstein, TechCrunch, November 21, 2013