[Chapter-delegates] FYI Vint and Bob's latest thoughts

[Joly MacFie]

>
>
> "I just hope that something like the internet will continue to be part of
> the society that we live in and that maybe some, you know, in some distant
> time, somebody will remember I had a tiny role to play in it," Cerf said.


Pretty sure that "Internet" was capitalized!

J

On Mon, Mar 25, 2024 at 12:29 PM Dave Burstein via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Founders of the internet reflect on their creation and why they have no
> regrets over creating the digital world
>
> By Tony Dokoupil, Analisa Novak
>
> Updated on: March 19, 2024 / 11:35 AM EDT / CBS News
>
> In an era where the answers to the most random questions — like the indoor
> land speed record or the Earth's weight — are just a few clicks away, we
> often take for granted the colossal network that makes it all possible: the
> internet. At the heart of this technological marvel are pioneers such as
> Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker and Bob Kahn, whose groundbreaking work has woven
> the fabric of the digital world we live in today.
>
> Despite their monumental achievements, these innovators remain modest
> about their contributions. "One of the big issues about the internet is
> that most people don't really have a good idea of what it is," Kahn said.
>
> Their journey began with a simple, yet revolutionary, idea: developing the
> technologies and software necessary to send data from one computer to
> another, eventually reaching across the globe.
>
> "I don't think the internet is a physical thing. I think it's the
> implementation of the internet protocols that's physical," Kahn said.
>
> "Bob is taking an interesting philosophical view of this," said Cerf.
> "There are descriptions of how the thing is supposed to work and you have
> to implement those descriptions in things called computers and routers and
> things like that."
>
> "It's the description of how it's supposed to work that's important. So
> you can keep building new things to work in new ways to make the internet
> even more interesting," said Cerf.
>
> That's what allowed their early networks to blossom into a whole universe
> of interconnected laptops and smartphones and speakers and headsets. All of
> which changed the way we — and they — get things done.
>
> The astonishment never fades for Cerf, who finds incredible "all the stuff
> that had to work" for a simple Google search to return results.
>
> The internet's origins trace back to a military tool — the ARPANET —
> developed in collaboration with figures like Joseph Haughney, a retired
> major in the U.S. Air Force who died last month. A precursor to the
> internet, ARPANET was developed to help the military, sharply different
> from from the internet's current role as a platform for socializing,
> entertainment and community building.
>
> "We always had this technology that my dad would kind of wheel it in and
> then show it to my mom, and no one really knew what it was," recalled
> Haughney's daughter, Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan.
>
> As her father got older, Dare-Bryan, an editor at Inc. magazine, decided
> to record his stories, building a podcast all about the founders of the
> internet. She selected a term her father had previously used to label some
> of these innovators for the podcast's name.
>
> "He called them these 'computer freaks.' He didn't want these computer
> freaks coming on and kind of hurting or harming his beloved ARPANET. And
> instead, we had something that was being used for, you know, socializing
> and finding communities," said Dare-Bryan.
>
> But for all the ways their work has improved our lives — and there are a
> lot of them — it's also introduced some challenges for privacy and personal
> connections.
>
> The ease of spreading misinformation and disinformation has become a
> significant concern. Cerf said he has no regrets and sees the internet's
> misuse as a human issue, not a technological flaw. "It's their
> responsibility," Cerf said.
>
> "I just hope that something like the internet will continue to be part of
> the society that we live in and that maybe some, you know, in some distant
> time, somebody will remember I had a tiny role to play in it," Cerf said.
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Joly MacFie  +12185659365
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