Vinton G. Cerf
CERF, Vinton G, (1943- ), American computer scientist and codeveloper of the Internet protocol, the digital networking technology most commonly used for communication over the Internet.
Born on June 23, 1943, in New Haven, Conn., and educated at Stanford University and the University of California at Los Angeles, Cerf joined the faculty of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford in 1972. There, as part of the internetworking project for the U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), he worked with American engineer Robert E. Kahn (1939- ) on developing a common, or open, protocol that would allow diverse types of computers to send electronic mail to one another. The result of their work, announced in 1974, was transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP), which quickly became a cornerstone of internetworking. With the full implementation of TCP/IP in 1983, the rapid growth of the public Internet was made possible.
Cerf remained at Stanford until 1976, when he joined ARPA to continue working on internetworking and other digital communication technologies. In 1982 he became vice-president of MCI Digital Information Services; in that post he directed development of a commercial e-mail service. With Kahn, in 1986 he started the Corporation for National Research Initiatives, a nonprofit organization that fosters advances in technologies and services to support the Internet. Cerf returned to MCI in 1994 as senior vice-president of Internet architecture and engineering.
Cerf served as founding president (1992-95) of the Internet Society. He wrote A Practical View of Communication Protocols (1979), and coauthored Guide to the TCP/IP Protocol Suite (1993). His "Cerf Report" (covering developments in internetworking as well as topics related to the history, philosophy, and future of the Internet) is published on the World Wide Web.
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