79-Year-Old Vint Cerf Receives IEEE Medal of Honor (circleid.com) 21
Long-time Slashdot reader penciling_in shared this special report from CircleID:
Vinton Cerf, widely known as the 'Father of the Internet,' has been awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2023 for his contributions to the development of the Internet architecture and for his leadership in its growth as a critical infrastructure for society.
In 1974, Robert Kahn and Cerf, who was working as program manager at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office, jointly designed the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol. Together they make up the Internet's core architecture and enable computers to connect and exchange traffic....
Since 2005, Cerf has been vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google in Reston, Va., promoting the usage of the Internet for the benefit of the public. Cerf is also in charge of locating new technologies and creating policies that assist the production of Internet-based products and services.
IEEE Spectrum shares this quote from one of the endorsers of the award. "Cerf's tireless commitment to the Internet's evolution, improvement, oversight, and evangelism throughout its history has made an indelible impact on the world. It is largely due to his efforts that we even have the Internet, which has changed the way society lives.
In 1974, Robert Kahn and Cerf, who was working as program manager at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office, jointly designed the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol. Together they make up the Internet's core architecture and enable computers to connect and exchange traffic....
Since 2005, Cerf has been vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google in Reston, Va., promoting the usage of the Internet for the benefit of the public. Cerf is also in charge of locating new technologies and creating policies that assist the production of Internet-based products and services.
IEEE Spectrum shares this quote from one of the endorsers of the award. "Cerf's tireless commitment to the Internet's evolution, improvement, oversight, and evangelism throughout its history has made an indelible impact on the world. It is largely due to his efforts that we even have the Internet, which has changed the way society lives.
Half a Century Late? (Score:3)
He did his groundbreaking work in 1974. A recognition in the 70s, or 80s, or even the 90s would have been nice.
Now, it seems a bit pointless.
Re: Half a Century Late? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Better late than never. :)
Re: Half a Century Late? (Score:4, Informative)
Widely known? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
If you asked 1000 random people who the father of the internet is, you would be lucky to find one person who knows who Vint Cerf is. You would also get some Al Gore guesses.
Everyone knows Al Gore invented the Al-Gore-ithm...
Re: (Score:3)
I hope Cerf remembers to thank Gore in his acceptance speech...
Re: (Score:2)
Looked at one way, Cerf kind of did, issuing a public statement that when Gore's remarks weren't taken out of context, it was clear Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.
Quite deserved, and quite overdue. (Score:5, Insightful)
Smart, grounded, great sense of humor. The right person in the right place at the right time.
Very nice nerd (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember he was very nice and liked to talk about the underlying protocols with a bit of glee in describing them. I didn't know then that I would go on to get a phd many years later and gain a much more in depth understanding of his work, and a lot of the work that came later built on it.
He also asked me to help a disabled friend with some computer issues in her DC condo once.
He paid very well for that help, and for my broken car window from when my car was broken into helping the friend in DC (grrr).
Re: (Score:2)
This kind of post is why I keep coming to Slashdot. Thanks!
[ I've met Vint Cerf in person twice, separated by about 20 years (he was at MCI the first time and Google the second) and agree with your opinion ]
Vastly more than deserved (Score:3)
IEEE gives out medals? (Score:2)
Who else gives out medals?
Hmmm....
Re: (Score:2)
A lot of professional organizations give out medals, for whatever reason.
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> Who else gives out medals?
All the IEEE members I know are old graybeards who have a shine on for all things War Department.
They're dropping off from cardiac problems at a suddenly increasing rate.
IEEE is still journals, paywalls, and memberships. Super '70's vibe, just like when Ethernet should have been recognized.
Also father of IPv6 fail (Score:1)
Vint Cerf is also father of the monumental failure [i-programmer.info] that is IPv6. Intentionally not upward compatible with IPv4, with predictable results. After 20 years of IPv6 believers stuffing it down everybody's throat, countless millions have been wasted and IPv4 still carries most of the world's internet traffic.
Re:Also father of IPv6 fail (Score:5, Interesting)
Vint Cerf is also father of the monumental failure [i-programmer.info] that is IPv6.
That graph that ends at 14% in your link is now at 40% [google.com]
Intentionally not upward compatible with IPv4, with predictable results.
I would predict that most people are at a loss to come up with how to communicate with a 2^128 bit address space using only 2^32 bit addresses. Obviously it's trivial to carve out a /32 in IPv6 space - it's the reverse direction that is hard. But there's a perfectly good transition mechanism: dual stack. If you're not serious about running dual stack, why would you spend lots of energy on any of the more ludicrous IPv4 extension schemes (class E, stargates, changes to IPv4 that require every end system to be changed).
After 20 years of IPv6 believers stuffing it down everybody's throat, countless millions have been wasted and IPv4 still carries most of the world's internet traffic.
That may be true, depending on how you define internet traffic. But remember that companies like Google and Facebook carry vastly more intra-network traffic for their datacenters than they send to the outside world, so my suspicion is that IPv6 isn't far from being top if you take that into account.
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40% is still a monumental fail, especially considering how money time and money has been spent trying to force this bad design into service. At some point you just have to admit it was wrongly conceived from the beginning. One of the biggest tech misfires in history actually.
What makes you think Google and Facebook use IPv6 internally in their data centers?
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40% is still a monumental fail, especially considering how money time and money has been spent trying to force this bad design into service. At some point you just have to admit it was wrongly conceived from the beginning. One of the biggest tech misfires in history actually.
The only driving force for moving to a bigger address space is when the old addresses start running out and you have to pay a significant amount of money to get them. So I think the clock only started ticking many years after IPv6 was standardized. You can look at Microsoft and Amazon buying big chunks of IPv4 address space for Cloud, and mobile companies generally _not_ buying big blocks and instead moving to IPv6. For example, IPv6 is 92% [akamai.com] on T-Mobile. Most corporate networks have an IPv4 network that work
Finally - really nice man (Score:2)
Late by a lot (Score:3)
By 1997 Vint Cerf’s contribution to the internet phenomenon was fully realized, even if the dot.com economy wasn’t. It took the Fed and WallSt. foot dragging this much longer and a digital economy remains a mythos. Inspite of those facts, Vint Cerf is beyond deserving fully responsible for the architecture upon which the world functions day to day.