Keynote 1: A Message from a Protocol Designer to Operators: Thank You!
Initially, there was no manual for network operations. The field grew organically and we all learned lessons the hard way. Practice came first; theory followed in a piecemeal fashion. Network operations is now a valuable and major profession. I'll share a story and some comments from the earliest days and a perspective on our current challenges.
Steve Crocker
Edgemoor Research Institute
President and CEO, Edgemoor Research Institute Dr. Steve Crocker is an Internet pioneer and computer scientist with experience in academia, government and industry. He participated in the development of the original suite of protocols for the Arpanet and created the Request for Comments series of technical memos to document protocols. He has been involved in the Internet since its inception. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while he was a graduate student at UCLA, he was part of the team that developed the protocols for the ARPANET and laid the foundation for today’s Internet. He organized the Network Working Group, which was the forerunner of the modern Internet Engineering Task Force and initiated the Request for Comment (RFC) series of notes through which protocol designs are documented and shared. For this work, Dr. Crocker was awarded the 2002 IEEE Internet Award. Starting in 2002, Dr. Crocker served as founding chair of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). He subsequently joined the ICANN board of directors, including serving as chair from 2011 to 2017.
