โ Scribed by Gilbert Held
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Father Gore Needs a Reality Check Y ou can tell it's beginning to look like election time by the level of political statements emanating from Washington, D.C. One of the more notable statements, perhaps for its tall tale even for a politician, is Al Gore's claim to be the father of the Internet. For those of us that were knee-deep in real-world problems such as configuring router access lists, examining network bandwidth utilization, or running diagnostic tests, Vice President Al Gore while being interviewed by CNN claimed that '. . . during my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.' While the Vice President's legislative career is notable for promoting technological advancements to include funding for libraries, colleges, and public schools to connect to the information highway, a term he claims to have coined and that I will not dispute; in no way, shape, or form is he the father or even a distant relative of the Internet. For a politician to claim such is absurd and denigrates the efforts of tens of thousands of individuals to include many prominent persons that contributed to the development of the network of networks we know as the Internet.
When we examine the development of the Internet we must first note the efforts of packet networking technologies that provided the infrastructure which enabled ARPAnet to expand from a research project to a viable commercial enterprise. Along the way thousands of persons were involved at colleges and universities, government agencies, and commercial enterprises. Although the Internet was a viable mechanism for email, file transfer, and remote connectivity, it wasn't until a few years ago that the Web browser provided the tool to expand the use of the Internet into tens of millions of homes and offices. Surely Al Gore is not claiming to be the father of the browser? Since then, researchers and entrepreneurs at private organizations developed voice digitization techniques and the mechanism to transport digitized voice that allows the Internet to carry voice conversations between continents. Surely Al Gore is not claiming to be the father of IP telephony?
While everyone is entitled to make relatively silly statements, the claim of Vice President Al Gore has taken silly to its limits. In addition, his claim to fame denigrates the real efforts of tens of thousands of researchers and entrepreneurs who are the true fathers of the Internet.
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