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Vinton G. Cerf

Vinton G. Cerf

Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He contributes to global policy development and continued spread of the Internet. Widely known as one of the "Fathers of the Internet," Cerf is the co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. He has served in executive positions at MCI, the Corporation for National Research Initiatives and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and on the faculty of Stanford University.

Vint Cerf served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2000-2007 and has been a Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1998. Cerf served as founding president of the Internet Society (ISOC) from 1992-1995. Cerf is a Foreign Member of the British Royal Society and Swedish Academy of Engineering, and Fellow of IEEE, ACM, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum, the British Computer Society, the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the Worshipful Company of Stationers and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He currently serves as Past President of the Association for Computing Machinery, chairman of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and completed a term as Chairman of the Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology for the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. President Obama appointed him to the National Science Board in 2012.

Cerf is a recipient of numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom, US National Medal of Technology, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, the Prince of Asturias Award, the Tunisian National Medal of Science, the Japan Prize, the Charles Stark Draper award, the ACM Turing Award, Officer of the Legion d’Honneur and 29 honorary degrees. In December 1994, People magazine identified Cerf as one of that year's "25 Most Intriguing People."

His personal interests include fine wine, gourmet cooking and science fiction. Cerf and his wife, Sigrid, were married in 1966 and have two sons, David and Bennett.

Authored Publications
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    Preview abstract A range of new technologies have the potential to help people, whether traditionally considered hearing impaired or not. These technologies include more sophisticated personal sound amplification products, as well as real-time speech enhancement and speech recognition. They can improve user’s communication abilities, but these new approaches require new ways to describe their success and allow engineers to optimize their properties. Speech recognition systems are often optimized using the word-error rate, but when the results are presented in real time, user interface issues become a lot more important than conventional measures of auditory performance. For example, there is a tradeoff between minimizing recognition time (latency) by quickly displaying results versus disturbing the user’s cognitive flow by rewriting the results on the screen when the recognizer later needs to change its decisions. This article describes current, new, and future directions for helping billions of people with their hearing. These new technologies bring auditory assistance to new users, especially to those in areas of the world without access to professional medical expertise. In the short term, audio enhancement technologies in inexpensive mobile forms, devices that are quickly becoming necessary to navigate all aspects of our lives, can bring better audio signals to many people. Alternatively, current speech recognition technology may obviate the need for audio amplification or enhancement at all and could be useful for listeners with normal hearing or with hearing loss. With new and dramatically better technology based on deep neural networks, speech enhancement improves the signal to noise ratio, and audio classifiers can recognize sounds in the user’s environment. Both use deep neural networks to improve a user’s experiences. Longer term, auditory attention decoding is expected to allow our devices to understand where a user is directing their attention and thus allow our devices to respond better to their needs. In all these cases, the technologies turn the hearing assistance problem on its head, and thus require new ways to measure their performance. View details
    Preview abstract The Loon SDN is a large-scale implementation of a Temporospatial SDN and a cloud service for the interoperation and coordination of aerospace networks. The system schedules the physical wireless topology and the routing of packets across the terrestrial, air, and space segments of participating aerospace networks based on the propagated motion of their platforms and high-fidelity modeling of the relationships, constraints, and accessibility of wireless links between them. The Loon SDN is designed to optimize the operational control of aerospace networks; provide network operators with greater flexibility, situational awareness, and control; facilitate interoperability between networks; and to coordinate interference avoidance. This paper describes the Loon SDN and highlights its applicability to other directional, steerable, multi-hop aerospace networks such as non-geostationary satellite constellations and NASA's next-generation space communication architecture. View details
    The Fragmentation of the Internet
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 20 (2016), pp. 88-
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    Preview abstract We have come a long way since the IEEE Computer article by Mark Weiser in which he envisioned small connected computers that ubiquitously enhance all aspects of our life. In this opening article of the IEEE IoT Connection, we put forward our analysis of the architectural leitmotifs we should pursue for the Internet of Things ecosystem in order to repeat the staggering success of the Internet that resulted in the introduction of the World Wide Web. By success, we mean the economic value, social and technological innovation these platforms have brought to the world. View details
    IoT Safety and Security as Shared Responsibility
    Max Senges
    Patrick Ryan
    Rick Whitt
    Journal of Business Informatics, vol. 1. 2016 (2016)
    Preview abstract As the things around us become more and more internetworked, users’ safety must be the first priority for all hardware and software providers. In the context of the Internet of Things, this paper puts forward a definition of “digital safety” as distinction from “online security” and discusses how multistakeholder governance can be applied to address safety challenges. View details
    'As we may think'
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
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    Milestones
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
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    Invention
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
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    A Persistent Headache
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 80-
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    Lest We Forget
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 80-
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    Memory with a twist
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
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    Access Control and the Internet of Things
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 96-
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    Padcasting
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 96
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    Cascade failure
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
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    Internet Governance Is Our Shared Responsibility
    Patrick S. Ryan
    Max Senges
    I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, vol. 10 (2014)
    Preview abstract This essay looks at the different roles that multistakeholder institutions play in the Internet governance ecosystem. We propose a model for thinking of Internet governance within the context of the Internet's layered model. We use the example of the negotiations in Dubai in 2012 at the World Conference on International Telecommunications as an illustration for why it is important for different institutions within the governance system to focus on their respective areas of expertise (e.g., the ITU, ICANN, and IGF). Several areas of conflict (a "tussle") are reviewed, such as the desire to promote more broadband infrastructure, a topic that is in the remit of the International Telecommunications Union, but also the recurring desire of countries like Russia and China to use the ITU to regulate content and restrict free expression on the Internet through onerous cybersecurity and spam provisions. We conclude that it is folly to try and regulate all these areas through an international treaty, and encourage further development of mechanisms for global debate like the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). View details
    An Information Avalanche
    IEEE Computer, vol. 40, no. 1 (2007), pp. 104-105
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    The Third Heidelberg Laureate Forum
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
    There is nothing new under the sun
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
    Dependencies
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 19 (2015), pp. 80-
    The human touch
    Commun. ACM, vol. 58 (2015), pp. 7
    What if it's us?
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Cognitive implants
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    The house elves of ACM
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    ACM and the professional programmer
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    The internet governance ecosystem
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Sometimes it takes some time!
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Bufferbloat and Other Internet Challenges
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 80
    Heidelberg Laureate Forum II
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Forty Years Ago..
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 88
    The Internet of Everyone
    Nii Quaynor
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 96
    Instrument Thyself!
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 88
    Unfinished Business
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 88
    ACM and the Professional Programmer
    ACM Queue, vol. 12 (2014), pp. 10
    Unconventional computing
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Responsible programming
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Virtual reality redux
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Knocking Down Strawmen
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 18 (2014), pp. 88
    Augmented reality
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Space for Internet and Internet for space
    Scott C. Burleigh
    Jon Crowcroft
    Vassilis Tsaoussidis
    Ad Hoc Networks, vol. 23 (2014), pp. 80-86
    Does innovation create or destroy jobs?
    Commun. ACM, vol. 57 (2014), pp. 7
    Growing the ACM family
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Cargo Cults and Information Technology Development
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 96
    What's a robot?
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Running AMOOC
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 88
    Computer science education - revisited
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    The Internet at Risk
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 3-5
    Freedom and the social contract
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    A revolution in India
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Abstraction, Federation, and Scalability
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 96-
    Revisiting the tragedy of the commons
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Heidelberg Laureate Forum
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Gateways for the Internet of Things: An old problem revisited
    Peter T. Kirstein
    GLOBECOM (2013), pp. 2641-2647
    Open access
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Honoring our best
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Augmented Intelligence
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 96
    ACM president's salary increased by 300%!
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Internet and the Other IP
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 96
    Loose Couplings
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 96
    Software at scale
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    'But officer, I was only programming at 100 lines per hour!'
    Commun. ACM, vol. 56 (2013), pp. 7
    Potpourri
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 96
    Things and the Net
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 96
    Computer science revisited
    Commun. ACM, vol. 55 (2012), pp. 7
    The Organic Internet
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 104
    Why is accessibility so hard?
    Commun. ACM, vol. 55 (2012), pp. 7
    Defense against the Dark Arts
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 96
    Where is the science in computer science?
    Commun. ACM, vol. 55 (2012), pp. 5
    Emergent Properties, Human Rights, and the Internet
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 87-88
    "It's the Net, Stupid"
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 16 (2012), pp. 96
    Open Source, Smart Grid, and Mobile Apps
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 15 (2011), pp. 96
    Natural Disasters and Electric Infrastructure
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 15 (2011), pp. 103
    Secure Identities
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 15 (2011), pp. 96
    Sherry Turkle: Alone Together
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 15 (2011), pp. 95-96
    The Battle for Internet Openness
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 15 (2011), pp. 104
    Successful strategies for IPv6 rollouts.: Really
    Thomas A. Limoncelli
    Commun. ACM, vol. 54 (2011), pp. 44-48
    Successful Strategies for IPv6 Rollouts. Really
    Thomas A. Limoncelli
    ACM Queue, vol. 9 (2011), pp. 20
    Trust and the Internet
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 14 (2010), pp. 95
    2012 Isn't the End of the World
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 14 (2010), pp. 96
    Internet Predictions
    Munindar P. Singh
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 14 (2010), pp. 10-11
    Internet Predictions
    Deborah Estrin
    K. Mani Chandy
    R. Michael Young
    Larry Smarr
    Andrew M. Odlyzko
    David D. Clark
    Viviane Reding
    Toru Ishida
    Sharad Sharma
    Urs Hölzle
    Luiz André Barroso
    Geoff Mulligan
    Adrian Hooke
    Chip Elliott
    IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 14 (2010), pp. 12-42
    A half-century makes a difference
    J. Internet Services and Applications, vol. 1 (2010), pp. 3-5
    A brief history of the internet
    Barry M. Leiner
    David D. Clark
    Robert E. Kahn
    Leonard Kleinrock
    Daniel C. Lynch
    Jonathan B. Postel
    Lawrence G. Roberts
    Stephen S. Wolff
    Computer Communication Review, vol. 39 (2009), pp. 22-31
    The geo-internet and how we may use it
    GIS (2008), pp. 2
    Keynote: Internet Evolution
    BCS Int. Acad. Conf. (2008), pp. 1-36
    A protocol for packet network intercommunication
    Robert E. Kahn
    Computer Communication Review, vol. 35 (2005), pp. 71-82
    Spam, spim, and spit
    Commun. ACM, vol. 48 (2005), pp. 39-43
    Taking internet's temperature: prescriptions for the 21st century
    JCDL (2004), pp. 1
    Requirements for the Internet
    RE (2003), pp. 3-4
    The Internet is for Everyone
    IETF (2002)
    Digital Government and the Internet
    DG.O (2002)
    Delay Tolerant Networking
    Hot Interconnects (2002), pp. 1-
    Beyond the Post-PC Internet
    Commun. ACM, vol. 44 (2001), pp. 34-37
    A Brief History of the Internet
    Barry M. Leiner
    David D. Clark
    Robert E. Kahn
    Leonard Kleinrock
    Daniel C. Lynch
    Jonathan B. Postel
    Lawrence G. Roberts
    Stephen S. Wolff
    CoRR, vol. cs.NI/9901011 (1999)
    I Remember IANA (Tribute, Jonathan B. Postel 1943-1998)
    Commun. ACM, vol. 41 (1998), pp. 27-28
    I REMEMBER IANA
    IETF (1998)
    The Past and Future History of the Internet
    Barry M. Leiner
    David D. Clark
    Robert E. Kahn
    Leonard Kleinrock
    Daniel C. Lynch
    Jonathan B. Postel
    Lawrence G. Roberts
    Stephen S. Wolff
    Commun. ACM, vol. 40 (1997), pp. 102-108
    An Agreement between the Internet Society and Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the Matter of ONC RPC and XDR Protocols
    IETF (1995)
    National information infrastructure (NII) at Supercomputing '93 (panel)
    Henry D. Shay
    Lansing Hatfield
    Stacey Jenkins
    Ed McCracken
    John Rollwagen
    Dale Williams
    SC (1993), pp. 376
    A Perspective on Ubiquitous Computing
    ACM Conference on Computer Science (1992), pp. 570
    Computer Networks: Past and Future
    Alfred C. Weaver
    IEEE Computer, vol. 24 (1991), pp. 106-107
    Towards the Future Internet Architecture
    D. Clark
    L. Chapin
    R. Braden
    R. Hobby
    IETF (1991)
    Networking in the nineties (panel session)
    Brent Auernheimer
    Susan Estrada
    Russ Hobby
    Craig Partridge
    Eugene H. Spafford
    Steven S. Wolff
    SIGCSE (1990), pp. 252
    The Internet Activities Board
    Computer Networks, vol. 17 (1989), pp. 337-341
    Electronic Mail and the Paper Society (Panel)
    IFIP Congress (1986), pp. 1123-1124
    DARPA interdomain addressing (panel session, title only)
    D. Clark
    Douglas Comer
    Larry L. Peterson
    Douglas B. Terry
    SIGCOMM (1985), pp. 71
    Military Requirements for Packet-Switched Networks and Their Implications for Protocol Standardization
    Robert E. Lyons
    Computer Networks, vol. 7 (1983), pp. 293-306
    The DoD Internet Architecture Model
    Ed Cain
    Computer Networks, vol. 7 (1983), pp. 307-318
    Packet Satellite Technology Reference Sources
    Data Networks with Satellites (1982), pp. 85-88
    Formalisms for interprocess communication
    Operating Systems Review, vol. 9 (1975), pp. 43-44
    International dialogue
    AFIPS National Computer Conference (1975), pp. 957
    Assessment of ARPANET protocols
    IETF (1974)
    A lower bound on the average shortest path length in regular graphs
    Donald D. Cowan
    R. C. Mullin
    R. G. Stanton
    Networks, vol. 4 (1974), pp. 335-342
    NCP statistics
    IETF (1972)
    Measurement of Recursive Programs
    Gerald Estrin
    IFIP Congress (1) (1971), pp. 314-319
    HOST-HOST communication protocol in the ARPA network
    C. Stephen Carr
    Stephen D. Crocker
    AFIPS Spring Joint Computing Conference (1970), pp. 589-597