Internet People

Internet People

The Internet was created by hundreds of people over several decades; some of those mentioned in this site are listed below.

The Internet

Paul Baran — Invented the concept of packet switched networks.

Robert Braden — Led development of RFC’s 1122 and 1123, Requirements for Internet Hosts.

Vannevar Bush — Wrote the first visionary description of the potential uses for information technology.

Vinton Cerf — Co-designer of the Internet TCP/IP networking protocol.

Lance Cottrell — Invented the mixmaster remailer and the original Anonymizer.com web anonymizer.

Dave Crocker — Worked on some of the early email applications.

Stephen Crocker — Organized the Request For Comments documents.

Donald Davies — Independently invented packet-switching.

Ellis, Cocks, and Williamson — Worked in secret on public key cryptography.

Robert Kahn — Co-designer of the Internet TCP/IP networking protocol.

Leonard Kleinrock — Pioneered digital network analysis, and helped build the ARPANET.

Ed Krol — Led the team that established the NSFNET, and wrote two of the first comprehensive surveys of the Internet.

J.C.R. Licklider — Popularized the concept of a universal network throughout DARPA and influenced his successors.

Marshall McLuhan — Popularized the concept of the global village throughout the world.

Merkle, Diffie, and Hellman — First discovered and published the concept of public key cryptography.

Jean Armour Polly — First popularized the phrase “surfing the Internet”

Jonathon Postel — Managed the IANA; RFC Editor for 25 years.

Joyce K. Reynolds — Supported IANA. Now the RFC Editor.

Dennis Ritchie — Helped develop the Unix operating system and C programming language.

Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman — Discovered the first workable public key algorithm.

Lawrence Roberts — Program Manager for the ARPANET.

Ben Segal — Helped Europe convert to TCP/IP via the EUnet.

Richard Stallman — Launched the GNU operating system.

Ken Thompson — Led development of the Unix operating system.

Linus Torvalds — Developed the kernel, Linux, often used with the GNU system.

Norbert Wiener — Developed the field of Cybernetics.

World Wide Web

Jean-François Abramatic — The first chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium.

Marc Andreessen — Led the team that invented the first widely popular web browser, called Mosaic.

Tim Berners-Lee — Developed the first web server, browser, and editor.

Robert Cailliau — Collaborated with Berners-Lee on development of the web at CERN.

Douglas Engelbart — Developed the mouse, the graphical user interface, and the first working hypertext system.

Ted Nelson — First invented the concept of hypertext.

Usenet Newsgroups

Steve Bellovin — Wrote the first Netnews Usenet program.

Steve Daniel — Wrote a second, more capable Netnews program.

Jim Ellis — Co-conceiver of the idea of Usenet.

Mark Horton — First connected the ARPANET to the USENET.

Brian Kantor — Helped develop the NNTP protocol.

Phil Lapsley — Helped develop the NNTP protocol.

Brian Reid — Helped created the alt hierarchy.

Gene Spafford — Formalized the early Usenet backbone.

Tom Truscott — Co-conceiver of the idea of Usenet.

Electronic Mail

Ray Tomlinson — Developed the first email program for the ARPANET.

John Vittal — Developed the first modern email program.

Barry Wessler — Improved the ARPANET email program.

Marty Yonke — Integrated one of the first email programs.

Mailing Lists

Brent Chapman — Developed the Majordomo mailing list software.

Lars Huttar — Helped develop the modern Internet Oracle.

Steve Kinzler — Helped develop the modern Internet Oracle.

Anastasios Kotsikonas — Developed the Listproc mailing list software.

Peter Langston — Developed the original Internet Oracle.

Eric Thomas — Developed the Listserv mailing list software.

Internet Relay Chat

Simon Marsh — Developed the Elsewhere talker program.

Jarkko Oikarinen — Developed Internet Relay Chat.

Daniel Stephens — Developed the second talker program.

Chris Thompson — Developed the first talker program.

Murray Turoff — Developed the first multi-machine chat system.

Jacques Vallee — Developed the PLANET chat system.

Multi-User Dungeons

Jim Aspnes — Wrote the first TinyMUD.

Richard Bartle — Took over development of MUD1 from Trubshaw.

Will Crowther — Developed the early computer game Adventure.

Pavel Curtis — Developed the idea of the MOO.

Lars Pensjl — Helped develop the original LPMUD.

Roy Trubshaw — Developed the first MUD.