Posts Tagged ‘Vint Cerf’
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
 GENEVA & RESTON, VA – Facebook, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO), are joining major content delivery networks Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) and Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW), and the Internet Society, for the first global-scale trial of the new Internet Protocol, IPv6.
On June 8, 2011, dubbed “World IPv6 Day,” participants will enable IPv6 on their main services for 24 hours.
With IPv4 addresses running out this year, the industry must act quickly to accelerate full IPv6 adoption or risk increased costs and limited functionality online for Internet users everywhere.
The companies are coming together to help motivate organizations across the industry—Internet service providers, hardware manufacturers, operating system vendors and other web companies—to prepare their services for the transition.
The Internet Society is supporting World IPv6 Day as part of its efforts to accelerate IPv6 deployment.
“2011 is a pivotal year in IPv6 deployment, and World IPv6 Day will prove to be an important milestone,” commented Leslie Daigle, the Internet Society’s Chief Internet Technology officer.
“By providing an opportunity for the Internet industry to collaborate to test IPv6 readiness we expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale IPv6 adoption and help make IPv6 ready for prime time. The greater the scope of the trial, the more effective it will be for all participants so we wholeheartedly welcome additional participants.”
IPv6, the successor to the protocol currently used on the Internet, was designed in the late 1990s but has not seen deployment on a global scale. With IPv4 address space running out, the industry cannot afford to wait much longer.
Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist and co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocol stack, commented, “In the short history of the Internet, the transition to IPv6 is one of the most important steps we will take together to protect the Internet as we know it.”
Cerf added, “It’s as if the Internet was originally designed with a limited number of telephone numbers, and we’re soon going to run out.” Google has offered a separate IPv6-only version of search on ipv6.google.com since early 2008, and during World IPv6 Day the company will enable IPv6 for its main websites.
Given the diversity of technology that powers the Internet, the global nature of the trial is crucial to identify unforeseen problems.
“Participating in World IPv6 Day will allow us to obtain real-life data that we can use to ensure a seamless user experience as we transition to IPv6,” said Adam Bechtel, Vice President for Yahoo’s Infrastructure Group.
World IPv6 Day marks a key milestone in enabling more and more computers and smart phones to come online. As more of the world moves online, IPv6 will be critical for the Internet to reach its full potential as a catalyst for growth, innovation and economic prosperity. IPv6 provides over four billion times more addresses than IPv4, which will help connect the billions of people not connected today.
Facebook views the rollout of IPv6 as a critically important step to keep the world connected. “As an industry, we’re working together to ensure future generations continue to have open and direct access to the Internet as we do today,” said Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of Technical Operations at Facebook. “The number of web-connected devices is exploding, and World IPv6 Day is a crucial step in ensuring they can all communicate.”
One of the goals of World IPv6 Day is to expose potential issues under controlled conditions and address them as soon as possible. The vast majority of users should be able to access services as usual, but in rare cases, misconfigured or misbehaving network equipment, particularly in home networks, may impair access to participating websites during the trial.
Current estimates are that 0.05% of users may experience such problems, but participating organizations will be working together with operating system manufacturers, home router vendors and ISPs to minimize the number of users affected. Participants will also be working together to provide tools to detect problems and offer suggested fixes in advance of the trial.
For more information about World IPv6 Day, how to get involved, and links to useful information for users, visit www.internetsociety.org/worldipv6day.
Tags: Adam Bechtel, facebook, Google, Internet Society, IPv6, Jonathan Heiliger, Vint Cerf
Posted in Internet/New Media, IT | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
 Joe Procopio By Joe Procopio
If you’re familiar with my geek cred, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’ve known about Vint Cerf and his contribution to the Internet for ages, almost all the way back to my days on CompuServe chatting about the Fixx and winning valuable prizes playing You Guessed It!
When I heard Dr. Cerf speak at Southeast Venture Conference in DC back in February, he started with a map of the Internet circa 1999, spent a good deal of time on today (security, privacy, policy) and finished with a brief overview of the Interplanetary Internet. Yeah. That’s real and that’s next.
Dr. Vint Cerf: Chief Internet Evangelist and Plumbing Specialist
Vint currently serves as the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, the coolest job on Geek Planet. But he knows his specialty, and like any good entrepreneur, he attacks it with vigor and without distraction.
He says he’s the guy who builds the freeway, and at WWW2010 he felt like he was asked to tell Enzo Ferrari how to build race cars. That’s you, early stage tech entrepreneur. You’re Enzo in that analogy.
He’s created the plumbing, the underbelly, the series of tubes that makes up what we call the World Wide Web. And he has a very good idea of what should be built and what’s going to be built up on the street level. This is why we love Vint, because he takes us down this rabbit hole he created and gives us a guided tour.
So How About That Internet, Huh?
I got an invitation for a one-on-one with Vint Cerf. I’m not going to go into how that happened, and instead leave it to your imagination. First and obvious thought: What the hell am I going to talk to him about? He’s pretty much heard it all before, he’s open and transparent about what he’s thinking. Am I going to unlock some bold and crazy secret that’s going to allow you to create Internet Disruption and Upheaval in 2010?
I’m going to try.
So let’s go back to all you Enzo Ferraris out there. The great thing about the Internet is its equalizing power, giving those of us with limited resources and little hope of major outside funding a shot at creating real impact and change. The downside, of course, is that we have limited resources and little hope of major outside funding.
What Does Vint Think?
 - Vint Cerf, the Google VP often called “Father of the Internet”
During his keynote, Vint spoke to the number of ways to improve the Internet as it is today and I asked him, noting that we don’t have money or influence, how we can make an impact.
He told me that was a tough question (which made my brain explode). The great thing about the Internet today, he said, is that there are so many things you can do without having to rely on everyone else to do the inventing.
But the conundrum, as with all innovation, is that innovation is easy compared to the effort and resources it takes in getting people to adopt the innovation. This is sales, marketing, and strategy.
A lot of entrepreneurs are long on invention and short on strategy and, unfortunately, a lot of potential businesses don’t survive as those skills aren’t brought into the picture soon enough.
However, there are new protocols from an engineering point of view to get those innovations out there.
Apps and Viral Growth
The web has permitted viral distribution of some applications, whether it be download for a particular platform or JavaScript and so on, and a lot of these new innovations are showing up on iPhone and Android. Now, how to monetize? That’s a different story.
Another way is to persuade the people with the wherewithal to cause software to be distributed to engage.
In the case of the basic Internet protocols, Vint recalled spending about 5 years convincing the major computer OS makers, the IBMs, HPs, Digitals, to build internet capability into their operating systems, and got free software built into the Berkeley Unix Release — BSD 4.2, the first integrated Internet protocols in the Unix OS. That put TCP/IP on the map in a free package and companies like Sun instantly adopted it. Thus, they found a way to ride the Unix Ethernet Workstation wave.
So you Ferraris: Find your wave.
It’s Still All About The Pentiums
So how do you play? Vint also believes that the strongest path for entrepreneurial advancement in this decade is still software. Mobile is a huge piece of that, what with 4.5 billion of them out there. Beyond that, we’ve only scratched the surface for a growing number of Internet enabled devices. i.e. the iPad. Further, the smart grid will create even more things that create and send data and they will drive the need for other devices.
Managing your internet enabled stuff will be a theme for this entire decade, and that includes 3rd party services and products and applications. So think entertainment systems managed by these systems, refrigerators talking to dishwashers to conserve energy, and in Vint’s particular case, a wine cellar letting him know his collection was about to go bad.
You Want A Big Playground? Build for the Interplanetary Internet
I mentioned to him that he didn’t get to the Interplanetary Internet this time, and he said he had meant to, but simply ran out of time.
It sounds like science fiction but it’s actual technology, which is how some of the most innovative science gets created. Back in 1998, Vint figured it had taken 25 years to get to where the Internet was then, and started thinking about what we might need in 2025.
That’s where the Interplanetary Internet comes from. He thought: “What do we have to do to network the solar system?” Part of it sounded dramatic, but part of it had real roots in manned and robotic space exploration. So he and JPL spent 5 years inventing the new protocols that were needed to provide a framework to launch more complex space missions.
Not long into it, they found that these same protocols applied to the tactical and commercial mobile sector, and have seen serious investment by the Defense Department and are exploring the implementation in the commercial sector, including Android.
Android? Yes. Android. Although there’s still a lot of work to be done. One big hurdle is the extremely high attention to security and access control. The last thing Vint wants to see is the headline: “15-Year-Old Takes Over MarsNet.” And it’s up to you Enzo Ferraris to make sure that doesn’t happen
Joe Procopio is the founder of Intrepid Company, a technical and management consulting firm (intrepidcompany.com) that has spun out publishing company/creative network Intrepid Media (intrepidmedia.com) and digital incubator ExitEvent (exitevent.com). He would like to someday be known as the Creepy Third Cousin of the Internet. He can be reached at joe@intrepidcompany.com or twitter @jproco.
Tags: Android, entrepreneurs, Internet protocols, Interplanetary Internet, iPhone, Joe Procopio, Vint Cerf, WWW2010
Posted in Carolinas, Columns, Internet/New Media, North Carolina, People | Comments Off
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
 RALEIGH, NC – FutureWeb, a conference exploring the future of social networks, open source, media, privacy, and other Web-centric issues, is bringing an impressive lineup of Internet mavens to the Raleigh Convention Center April 28-30 (next Wednesday-Thursday).
Panelists and speakers include Vint Cerf, Tim Berners Lee, Danny Weitzner, Chris DiDona, Doc Searls, and Bob Young among many others.
Cerf, often called “Father of the Internet,” spoke at our own Southeast Venture Conference in February and is an engaging and entertaining keynote speaker with a wealth of personal stories to bolster his insightful ideas about the future of the Internet.
Leaders from Google, the Web Science Trust and Web Foundation, eBay, NTIA, the US Executive Office of the President, Microsoft, EPIC, the Internet Society, Red Hat, Lulu, the Mozilla Foundation and more will discuss the probable evolution of the Web and what it will mean for our social, political and economic future.
We understand that Bob Young, CEO and founder of Lulu.com and a co-founder of open source software provider Red Hat, will be making a major announcement about Lulu. The company recently temporarily withdrew its planned initial public offering of stock on the Toronto Exchange, so we’ll be looking forward to what Young has in mind for the Web-based publish on demand company.
 The Mission of the sponsoring organization, Elon University’s Imagining the Internet, is to explore and provide insights into emerging network innovations, global development, dynamics, diffusion and governance. The Center is based at Elon Univeristy’s School of Communications and is a mostly volunteer effort financed by the university, with added support from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Speakers and panelists at the event include:
Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, Danny Weitzner, danah boyd, Andrew McLaughlin, James Hendler, Chris DiBona, Bob Young, Marc Rotenberg, Nigel Shadbolt, Nathaniel Lin, John Lovett, Michael Clemente, Doc Searls, Lee Rainie, Scott Bradner, David Ferriero, Phil Mui, Bob Page, Alejandro Pisanty, David Burney, Michael Tiemann, Charles Coleman, Tom Rabon, Penny Abernathy, Michael Rappa, Paul Jones, Cathy Davidson, Henry Copeland, Tom Miller, Nathaniel James, Fred Stutzman, Dan Conover, Mark Anthony Neal, Negar Mottahedeh, Dave Levine, Zeynep Tufekci, Wayne Sutton, Ira Nathenson, Eric Fink, Jacqui Lipton, Tony O’Driscoll and more.
Schedule
Follow FutureWeb on Twitter!
http://twitter.com/futureweb2010
Learn more about Imagining the Internet!
http://www.imaginingtheinternet.org
Tags: Bob Young, Events, FutureWeb, Imaginging the Internet, NC, Raleigh, Tim Berners Lee, Vint Cerf
Posted in Carolinas, Events, Internet/New Media, North Carolina | 2 Comments »
Friday, February 26th, 2010
 Vint Cerf TYSONS CORNER, VA – Google Vice President Vint Cerf, often called “father of the Internet” for his work on the Internet protocol in the early 1970s, told an audience at the Southeast Venture Conference here Thursday that the mobile Web and security are two areas that the assembled entrepreneurs and venture capitalists should view as opportunities.
Cerf, who advocated for openness and net neutrality as essential to the Internet, also talked about the developing “Interplanetary Internet,” and encouraged the audience to try out the Mars button on Google Earth to travel vicariously over the surface of the planet thanks to imagery from the Mars orbiters and rovers.
Mobile opportunity
Cerf said there are now 4 billion mobile phones, 800 million of which can currently access the Internet. “Over time, a significant fraction of the Net community may be found in the mobile environment, so it is important to anyone thinking about Internet products and services,” he said.
The importance of mobile is the reason Google is investing so much in it with Nexus One and the Android phone, he said.
Cerf was the luncheon keynote speaker at the two-day event at which 60 innovative Southeastern tech companies presented their business plans. Other speakers include Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, and Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association. The event ended Thursday evening.
Asia has most Web users
Discussing use of the Internet globally, he noted that North America has the highest penetration at 75 percent, but no longer boasts the most users. Asia captures that with 738.3 million users, about half in China—and that’s only 20 percent of the Asian population.
Europe, with 52 percent penetration has 418 million users, while North America has 252.9 million.
Africa lags and “Is one of the hardest places to build penetration,” Cerf noted.
Cerf also spoke of the need to adopt IPv6, the new address space standard.
He said security is of growing importance and that the new digitally signed version of the domain name system should help.
Smart grid program another entrepreneurial opportunity
He pointed to the development of a U.S. smart grid program to make the national power system more visible and controllable, saying, “It should offer a major opportunity for many people in this room to participate.”
Pointing to the diversity of applications the Internet now supports, Cerf said, “It wasn’t designed to support any of them. The lesson: don’t get too deeply into the details of what you try to implement. If you stay a little ambiguous, it may support more than you originally planned.”
Cerf talked about the “Dramatic demonstration of the utility of interconnection” offered by the Internet in its use to save lives in Haiti and to give voice to opposition in Iran.
In the recent Haiti disaster, he said, some people buried under rubble were able to tweet that they were stuck and were thus rescued.
Cerf also said that the Internet now connected in ways he had never anticipated. “Like refrigerators,” he said. Or, he added, the ocean surfer who Web enabled his surfboard. “I can imagine him sitting on the ocean waiting for the next wave thinking, ‘Hey I could be surfing the Internet.’ “
Security biggest issue today
Cerf also discussed the rising use of sensors connected to the Internet – such as the one that monitors the temperature of his wine cellar.
“Security is by far the biggest issue on the net today,” Cerf said. While technology may deal with some security issues, he said that changing user behavior—such as getting them to use more secure passwords and to change them often—was also necessary.
Technology may even aid that by coming with ways to make it easy to change a password every time it is used, he said. “Then, even if it’s compromised, it won’t matter, because it won’t work a second time.”
Cerf wrapped up his keynote discussing the semantic Web. Google, he says, would “Really like to know more about the meaning of things. Words can mean different things or different words can mean the same things. It’s a hard nut to crack.”
Developing more insight into “meaning” would improve Google’s ability to provide the right search results, he pointed out.
“We’re dependent upon the research community for a breakthrough,” he said. –Allan Maurer
Tags: Interplanetary Internet, mobile, Security, SEVC, Vint Cerf
Posted in Events, Internet/New Media, People, Security, Telecommunications | Comments Off
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