Internet Evangelist, Vinton Cerf

"The most troubling thing about the internet environment is the buggy software.  You hear people worrying about artificial intelligence and machine learning but I'm worried about autonomous software running on the Internet of Things [networks attached to smart devices] that have bugs."
"We have a lot of work to do to clean up the ecology we've created."
"It is a dog's breakfast of ideas [China's proposed New Internet Protocol] that do not fit together very well. What they wanted to do was to get more control."
"I have trouble believing it doesn't have any software in there [Huawei Communications] that lets the Chinese government get access to anything."
Vinton Cerf, father of the Internet, vice-president Google

The standards we now take for granted that maintain our electronic devices in connection to the internet were pioneered in 1973 by Vint Cerf, a then-assistant professor at Stanford University, along with his colleague Bob Kahn. They did that enormous deed to the world when they developed the Internet Protocol (IP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for use by the U.S.  military to enable different types of software, hardware, operating systems and networks to communicate.

Their intention, as the developers of a brave new world of communications was to ensure that this be viewed as a universal tool open to being built upon, expanded and customized, with its basic underpinnings intact. When software developers came along to build over the basic structure they were able to do so with ease and confidence, bringing the world further along in recognition of the usefulness of the indispensable communication tool the product became, one that is still expanding.

It took five years to see the World Wide Web develop following the launch of the internet in 1983. Decades on, the wide open, free-to-use internet, geographically unattached is edging away from its place as a global standard, leading to what Vint Cerf speaks of as a "Splinternet", coined by the Cato Institute. A New Internet Protocol representing a set of standards replacing the original internet was proposed last year by China.

A country with vast influence, power and ambition, China seeks to control the internet just as its goal has become clear internationally to control everything and anything it recognizes for its importance to a fast-developing world of unimaginable technological advances. China alone has up to a billion internet users, where several successful internet companies such as Alibaba and Baidu are top of the Chinese social networks facilitating contact between its enormous population base.

And it has been China that has pioneered a goal of its own relating to the internet as it began to filter, block and manipulate social media for its own controlling purposes; technology they are making available at a price to other countries eager to control what their populations see and have access to under authoritarian governments. Britain's still tenuous intention to retain equipment from Huawei in its 5G network upgrade, U.S. warning aside of threats to national security also concern Vint Cerf.

Search Engine Journal  Vinton Cerf

Apart from his certainty that the Chinese government will have access to other countries' sovereign data, he worries that worldwide routing systems as well are not protected adequately. He spends a good portion of his time now campaigning for internet security, net neutrality and backing up information as being of vital importance.

American government agencies had created various networks for electronic communication, prohibited for public use by the late 1980s. This, at a time when Mr.Cerf worked for MCI Mail, among the first of the commercial email providers. He sought government permission in experimenting to determine if he could connect MCI's private email-system to the internet. Given a year, his efforts were successful, leading other email providers to lobby for access openings and  soon public email accounts were rampant.

For the past 15 years Mr. Cerf has worked for Google, advocating for accessibility-by-design to service Google's business plan, now viewed by the public as a conglomerate advertising machine with political biases. Mr. Cerf has seen the internet morph from neutral to hosting abuses such as fake news, cyber bullying and other negatives of social media. Google's neutral platform position is seen now to be hanging in the balance.

Image:NASA/JPL

"Many of us did not anticipate the harmful potential of these technologies. The people who are creating these products and writing the software should feel a much greater burden than in the past because the harmful side effects can be devastating on a global scale."
"Not only do individuals need to feel this ethical pressure, but I feel that companies need to be incentivized to do everything in their ability to ensure these bad things do not happen."
Vinton Cerf