{"id":3149,"date":"2015-05-05T11:58:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T09:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grupobcc.com\/?p=3149"},"modified":"2017-02-07T14:29:53","modified_gmt":"2017-02-07T13:29:53","slug":"vint-cerf-the-father-of-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grupobcc.com\/en\/news\/vint-cerf-the-father-of-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Vint Cerf, words from the father of the internet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you set your mind to visualising the Father of the Internet, and arrived at a fuzzy notion of a sort of North American Doctor Who, you’d be pretty close to the mark. A snow-bearded and professorial 66-year-old, dressed invariably in a formal three-piece suit, Google vice-president Vint Cerf has a youthful intensity in his eyes and an avuncular, but slightly otherworldly nature: a wise old man who has dropped by from parts unknown to tell you what the future is like from his point of view as the father of the internet.<\/h2>\n

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“I’ve always been slightly on the formal side,” he\u00a0says of his outfits. They make him an anachronism amidst his Birkenstock-wearing tech colleagues. “I like watching Sherlock Holmes’ movies because all the guys wear three-piece suits. I’m a 19th century guy in the 21st century, and I like it,” he explains. Even his name seems beamed in from some other dimension: an improbable sci-fi moniker perfect for a champion and conqueror of the digital world. (Actually, he says, it’s French.)<\/p>\n

Vint Cerf, nicknamed\u00a0the father of the internet, was in Auckland and Wellington last week as the keynote speaker at a conference addressing an impending crisis in the internet’s infrastructure. In the next two years, the world will run out of internet addresses, necessitating a shift to an updated version of internet protocol called IPv6. It will have enough addresses for everybody in the world (China currently has only 22% internet penetration), as well as their phones, PDAs and whatever else they want to put online (Cerf knows of a guy who internet-enabled his surfboard). The impending scarcity will lead to an ugly scramble of grey markets and desperate, retroactive crisis management unless efforts are sped up to adopt the new protocol.<\/p>\n

“It’s going to be messy”, he says. “I’m not looking forward to 2010. The upgrading of networks to the new protocol has been slow, despite the fact the design of the new address space was completed in 1996. No one implemented it because it hadn’t run out yet”. Addressing Auckland conference delegates, his rich Californian accent rising to the nasal upper registers now synonymous with the American computing fraternity, Cerf compared the situation to the phone network running out of numbers.<\/p>\n

The metaphor was possibly one of the few intelligible-to-a-layman statements made that day. Despite the impenetrability of much of the content, th father of the internet was thoroughly engaging. In part, this was because of his manner. Indefatigably cheery (a necessity for a man whose business card introduces him as “Chief Internet Evangelist”), Cerf is an animated speaker, given to the gentle displays of eccentricity taken as signifiers of innovation in Silicon Valley. Faced with a Star-Times camera, the father of the internet decides to mix things up by stacking the conference venue furniture in a pile and perching himself on top. Confronted during his presentation with claims about the effectiveness of a discredited web security technique, he blurts: “That’s bullshit!”, then throws down a good-spirited gauntlet: “Is there anyone who wants to stand up and debate me about net security? Stand up right now, I’ll take you on!”<\/p>\n

But mostly, Vint Cerf is a compelling speaker because of his authority. While the internet has a number of founding fathers, Cerf is accorded the the father of the internet. His co-authorship of TCP\/IP protocol and subsequent innovations have him regarded as a visionary of the tech world, a guru. At least one child has been named after him.<\/p>\n

Vint Cerf is employed by Google since 2005. Cerf’s work is to travel the world proselytising for the internet, and advocating for the expansion of its infrastructure. “I can’t imagine a better job in the world,” he says.<\/p>\n

Vint Cerf’s career began just over 40 years ago.\u00a0Social order was on the brink of being overthrown by a riotous counterculture. He\u00a0was a graduate student at UCLA. He was working on the development of protocols that would allow computers to talk to each other on the Arpanet, a “packet switching” network established by the US Department of Defense. Did the young tech pioneers join the wave of anti-establishment tumult beyond their office? Did they grasp the revolutionary implications?<\/p>\n

“We had no idea this was going to turn into the world’s new telecommunications backbone,” says Vint Cerf. They knew it was a powerful concept, but that it would become what it did? “No clue.” Similarly, the social upheaval of the age was just something that was happening to other people. He and his colleagues “ignored” Vietnam; Cerf was called up for conscription but failed a medical on account of his hearing impairment. The summer of love did not shine on him. “I was a geek,” he says, of his young days. “A complete geek. I wore ties to school, sports coats and slacks. I carried a briefcase.”<\/p>\n

The father of the internet\u00a0is often asked to predict where technology will lead in the future; you need only to go back a decade to check his hit rate. In 2000, he wrote in Time magazine of a mobile device on the horizon that would combine a phone, camera, email, payment system and digital book, and would have a catchy name. He suggested Widget (Wireless Internet Digital Gadget for Electronic Transactions); seven years later, Apple plumped for “iPhone”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you set your mind to visualising the Father of the Internet, and arrived at a fuzzy notion of a sort of North American Doctor Who, you’d be pretty close to the mark. A snow-bearded and professorial 66-year-old, dressed invariably in a formal three-piece suit, Google vice-president Vint Cerf has a youthful intensity in his… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n