I attended tonight a wide-ranging, sometimes esoteric but always fascinating talk at the National Archives, The Third Annual William G. McGowan Forum on Communications, Technology and Government. The two panelists were Vint Cerf, now Chief Internet Evangelist for Google and Robert Kahn, CEO of the Corporation for Research Initiatives. And, oh yeah, these two guys invented the Internet.
Moderated by Tom Wheeler, Chairman of the Foundation of the National Archives, and a long-lost friend and former boss of mine, the discussion was illuminating, ranging from when and how, precisely, Kahn and Cerf achieved the breakthroughs that created the Internet to what lies ahead for the Internet.
Like any pioneers, Kahn and Cerf ran against conventional wisdom to make the Internet happen. The first step they took was to band together large computers "at a time when anybody on the communications side of the world thought that this was a crazy notion," Kahn said.
One pivotal month in the creation of the Internet was November 1977 when "we managed to get all three Arpanet networks (satellite, wireless and landline) working together," Cerf said. Another pivotal month, January 1983, was when 400 engineers mostly (Kahn had to do clean-up for six months afterwards, he said) managed to get their work done on creating TCP/IP.
The year 1988 was another big turning point, when some companies were permitted to start commercial applications on the NSFNet. Congressman Rick Boucher (D-VA) fueled things even faster in 1993 when he moved a bill that allowed the NSFNet to be used for commercial purposes.
And the rest is, of course, history. Kahn and Cerf were there every step of the way overseeing the development of this phenomenal, world-changing global system.
The two long-time colleagues and rarefied geniuses at one point almost broke out into an argument in front of the packed room. When asked by Wheeler what mistakes were made in designing this sophisticated system, Kahn answered that it was a mistake to allow for only 32-bit IP addresses, a limitation that will soon be corrected -- or else the world will quickly run out of IP addresses.
Cerf, who clearly was in charge of this aspect of the Internet's design, took umbrage at the notion that the 32-bit system was a "mistake." At the time, IP addresses were an experiment, and the 32-bit system was designed to yield 4.6 billion IP addresses, he said. "I thought for an experiment that that was enough." To which Kahn replied that some computer scientist published a paper in the journal of the IEEE at the time which warned about the 32-bit system.
The theme of the evening was supposed to be about "who controls the Internet," and ultimately the discussion got around to this issue. Typically "Internet governance" is a shorthand phrase for U.S.-based ICANN's control over Internet domains, something that other nations believe gives the U.S. too much power.
Kahn said that, really, the Internet cannot be governed and the ICANN domain issue is a red herring. "A lot of people looked at that and said 'that's got to be the control center' because there is nothing else." Some of the most important things in the world can't be controlled, and the Internet is one of them.
"Who's in charge of the global economy? Who's in charge of the weather? You just deal with it," he said.
Governance of the Internet, Cerf said, actually encompasses a lot more difficult issues than the ICANN matter (Cerf is currently the ICANN chair). People are concerned about the content of the Internet, about controlling damaging things such as viruses. "The governance issue raises questions about what's acceptable and what's not acceptable."
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:17 PM|Comments(0)
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