Stephen D. Crocker | |
|---|---|
 Crocker in 2007 | |
| Born | October 15, 1944 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Internet engineer |
Stephen D. Crocker (born October 15, 1944) is an American Internet pioneer. In 1969, he created the ARPA "Network Working Group" and the Request for Comments series. He served as chair of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from 2011 through 2017. [1] [2] [3]
Steve Crocker attended Van Nuys High School, as did Vint Cerf and Jon Postel. Crocker received his bachelor's degree (1968) and PhD (1977) from the University of California, Los Angeles. [4]
As a graduate student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in the 1960s, he was part of the team that developed the protocols for the ARPANET which were the foundation for today's Internet. [5] He said "While much of the development proceeded according to a grand plan, the design of the protocols and the creation of the RFCs was largely accidental." [nb 1] He was instrumental in forming a Network Working Group (NWG) in 1969 and was the instigator of the Request for Comment (RFC) series, [6] authoring the first RFC [7] and many more. [8] Crocker led other graduate students, including Jon Postel and Vint Cerf, in designing a host-host protocol known as the Network Control Program (NCP). [nb 2] They planned to use separate protocols, Telnet and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), to run functions across the ARPANET. [nb 3] [9] [10] NCP codified the ARPANET network interface, making it easier to establish, and enabling more sites to join the network. [11] [12]
He formed the International Network Working Group (INWG) in 1972, [13] [14] then his research interests shifted to artificial intelligence. He was acknowledged by Cerf and Kahn in their seminal 1974 paper on internetworking. [15]
While at UCLA Crocker taught an extension course on computer programming (for the IBM 7094 mainframe computer). The class was intended to teach digital processing and assembly language programming to high school teachers, so that they could offer such courses in their high schools. A number of high school students were also admitted to the course, to ensure that they would be able to understand this new discipline. Crocker was also active in the newly formed UCLA Computer Club.
Crocker has been a program manager at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a senior researcher at USC's Information Sciences Institute, founder and director of the Computer Science Laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation and a vice president at Trusted Information Systems. In 1994, Crocker was one of the founders and chief technology officer of CyberCash, Inc. [16] [17] In 1998, he founded and ran Executive DSL, a DSL-based ISP. In 1999 he cofounded and was CEO of Longitude Systems. He is currently CEO of Shinkuro, [18] a research and development company.
The Networking Working Group RFC's provided the context in which the IETF was created in 1986. He has been an IETF security area director, a member of the Internet Architecture Board, chair of the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, board member and chairman of ICANN, a board member of the Internet Society and numerous other Internet-related volunteer positions.
He has worked in the Internet community since its inception. For his work on the Internet, Crocker was awarded the 2002 IEEE Internet Award. [19] In 2012, Crocker was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society. [20]
The history of the Internet has its origin in the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and devices on the Internet, arose from research and development in the United States and involved international collaboration, particularly with researchers in the United Kingdom and France.
Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interconnected networks is called an internetwork, or simply an internet.
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and the Internet Protocol (IP). Early versions of this networking model were known as the Department of Defense (DoD) model because the research and development were funded by the United States Department of Defense through DARPA.
Jonathan Bruce Postel was an American computer scientist who made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly with respect to standards. He is known principally for being the Editor of the Request for Comment (RFC) document series, for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and for administering the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) until his death.
A Request for Comments (RFC) is a publication in a series from the principal technical development and standards-setting bodies for the Internet, most prominently the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An RFC is authored by individuals or groups of engineers and computer scientists in the form of a memorandum describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems. It is submitted either for peer review or to convey new concepts, information, or, occasionally, engineering humor.
Vint Cerf is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn.
A datagram is a basic transfer unit associated with a packet-switched network. Datagrams are typically structured in header and payload sections. Datagrams provide a connectionless communication service across a packet-switched network. The delivery, arrival time, and order of arrival of datagrams need not be guaranteed by the network.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Internet Protocol–related symbols and Internet numbers.
InterNIC, known as the Network Information Center (NIC) until 1993, was the organization primarily responsible for Domain Name System (DNS) domain name allocations and X.500 directory services. From its inception in 1972 until October 1, 1991, it was run by the Stanford Research Institute, now known as SRI International, and led by Jake Feinler. From October 1991 until September 18, 1998, it was run by Network Solutions. Thereafter, the responsibility was assumed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense.
The Network Control Protocol (NCP) was a communication protocol for a computer network in the 1970s and early 1980s. It provided the transport layer of the protocol stack running on host computers of the ARPANET, the predecessor to the modern Internet.
The domain name arpa is a top-level domain (TLD) in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. It is used predominantly for the management of technical network infrastructure. Prominent among such functions are the subdomains in-addr.arpa and ip6.arpa, which provide namespaces for reverse DNS lookup of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, respectively.
Louis Pouzin is a French computer scientist and Internet pioneer. He directed the development of the CYCLADES computer network in France the early 1970s, which implemented a novel design for packet communication. He was the first to implement the end-to-end principle in a wide-area network, which became fundamental to the design of the Internet.
An Internet Experiment Note (IEN) is a sequentially numbered document in a series of technical publications issued by the participants of the early development work groups that created the precursors of the modern Internet.
Peter Thomas Kirstein was a British computer scientist who played a role in the creation of the Internet. He made the first internetworking connection on the ARPANET in 1973, by providing a link to British academic networks, and was instrumental in defining and implementing TCP/IP alongside Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.
In computer networking, a port or port number is a number assigned to uniquely identify a connection endpoint and to direct data to a specific service. At the software level, within an operating system, a port is a logical construct that identifies a specific process or a type of network service. A port at the software level is identified for each transport protocol and address combination by the port number assigned to it. The most common transport protocols that use port numbers are the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP); those port numbers are 16-bit unsigned numbers.
The internet layer is a group of internetworking methods, protocols, and specifications in the Internet protocol suite that are used to transport network packets from the originating host across network boundaries; if necessary, to the destination host specified by an IP address. The internet layer derives its name from its function facilitating internetworking, which is the concept of connecting multiple networks with each other through gateways.
Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute. Her group operated the Network Information Center (NIC) for the ARPANET as it evolved into the Defense Data Network (DDN) and the Internet.
The Protocol Wars were a long-running debate in computer science that occurred from the 1970s to the 1990s, when engineers, organizations and nations became polarized over the issue of which communication protocol would result in the best and most robust networks. This culminated in the Internet–OSI Standards War in the 1980s and early 1990s, which was ultimately "won" by the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) by the mid-1990s when it became the dominant protocol suite through rapid adoption of the Internet.
The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
Media related to Steve Crocker at Wikimedia Commons
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