Vinton Cerf
Vinton Cerf
Vinton Gray Cerf ForMemRS,is an American Internet pioneer, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-inventor Bob Kahn and packet switching inventors Paul Baran and Donald Davies, among others. 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...
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth23 June 1943
CityNew Haven, CT
I would agree that the U.S. educational system, especially at the undergraduate and graduate levels, needs some work, but in the meantime, we seem to be cranking out people who are capable,
Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success.
Of course, you do have to get accustomed to being satisfied a little bit at second-hand by people who actually do some of the key work.
People need to be exposed to what the various problems are in various parts of the business. And you can become isolated from that in a large company.
These people just don't know you can't do that. So they just go out and do it. That's the great thing of working with all these new folks.
If you need to understand it to make policy, you should turn first to people who are scientists and engineers for factual information.
Geographically indexed databases are going to be extremely valuable over time for people who are in mobile operations.
In a town of 3,000 people there is no privacy. Everybody knows what everybody is doing.
The purpose behind terrorism is to instill fear in people - the fear that electrical power, for instance, will be taken away or the transportation system will be taken down.
Instant messaging and chat rooms have basically created a level playing field for deaf people.
My belief is that there will be very large numbers of Internet-enabled devices on the Net - home appliances, office equipment, things in the car and maybe things that you carry around. And since they're all on the Internet and Internet-enabled, they'll be manageable through the network, and so we'll see people using the Net and applications on the Net to manage their entertainment systems, manage their, you know, office activities and maybe even much of their social lives using systems on the Net that are helping them perform that function.
I'm disappointed in people in general.
The structure of the W3C didn't lend itself to quite the degree of freedom to contribute that the IETF does. We found it difficult to get points across and to influence what was happening.
The time is now to think beyond the Earth. Lest you think this is all fantasy, let me assure you that it is quite real.