Emergence of modern internet
Thirty years ago, on 1st January 1983, the world
entered a new era of communication with the birth of ‘Modern Internet’ which we
use today. This communication revolution
was made by the TCP/IP protocol, was developed by Dr. Vinton G. Cerf and Robert
E. Kahn. They are now considered
‘Fathers of Modern Internet’.
In those days, ARPANET was
the wide-area network sponsored by the US Defence Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). It went live in 1969, when Vinton Cerf was an ARPANET scientist
at the Stanford University. The military became interested in a common protocol
as different networks and systems using different and proprietary protocols
began to hook up to ARPANET, and they found that they could not talk to each other
easily.
On 1st January 1983, the new Internet Protocol
TCP/IP, which replaced the older system, was accepted as the standard and the
modern Internet was born. The Internet,
a revolutionary and cost-effective communication system has transformed the lives
of billions of people across the world. Using data
"packet-switching", the new method of linking computers and sharing
information paved the way for the arrival of the World Wide Web.
Interaction with Dr Vinton G Cerf
Dr. Vinton G. Cerf (70), the main architect of
Modern Internet, is presently the President and CEO of Google Special Services
Inc. and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google.
He visited Chennai in mid-January 2013 to participate in the annual
meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – India Council. Dr. Vinton is the International President of
ACM. We had the opportunity of recording
his inspiring interview for PodUniversal and PreSense. (Link for his interview is given at the end
of this article).
While people with less qualification and
achievement pose themselves as great men, this legendary person, who
revolutionalised the entire globe with his invention, looked very simple and
humble. In the 45 minutes of
conversation we had with him, he spoke and came across as a very simple
man.
Awards and recognition
Dr. Vinton Cerf has received hundreds of
national and international awards for his achievement. He is also the recipient of the ‘Turing
Award’ for Technology, equivalent to the Nobel Prize, in Computing. Recently, President Obama has appointed him
as a member of National Science Board in US Government.
Dr. Vinton suffered from a
hearing impairment from an early age, and he later attributed some of his
interest in computer networking to its promise as an alternative communications
channel for the hearing impaired. His personal disability triggered a great
communication revolution in the globe.
Exclusive interview with PodUniversal
In an exclusive interview with K. Srinivasan,
Editor-in-Chief of PreSense and PodUniversal, Dr. Vinton said that at the time
of the invention, his team had high hopes that this would become a powerful
infrastructure in future. “I think those
hopes have been largely realised” he added proudly.
On computer security, he said, “There is still
plenty of work to be done on the technical side and on the training side to get
users to adopt safer communication practices.”
He suggested ‘two factor authentication’ for the safety of the
users.
On his passion, his achievement, and his message
to the Indian youth, he said, “The simple message here is that you need to be
really passionate about making something happen and you better be prepared to
be patient and persistent because some ideas, the Net included, will not be
widely accepted.” In the same breath, he
also appreciated Indian entrepreneurs for exporting their skill, talents and
inventions to the rest of the world.
PreSense is proud to feature him as ‘Man of the
month’ (though he is the Man of the Century) in the current issue, when the
world celebrates the 30th year of modern Internet.
PodUniversal Edition 161
Please listen to his inspiring interview in the
following link (10 minutes). We have also published
the transcript (courtesy Esther Emil, GRI) for the benefit of those who cannot
follow the American accent.
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