ItÕs not clear in the National Information Infrastructure thereÕs going to be anyone around who knows enough about all the pieces to make something work or, if something goes wrong, to fix it. The challenge is how to prevent that scenario from becoming the showstopper.
Predictor: Kahn, Robert
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of a 1994 Computerworld article ÒThe History of the Future,Ó by senior editor Gary H. Anthes. Anthes interviewed more than a dozen pioneers of ARPAnet, forerunner to todayÕs Internet, including Robert Kahn the founder and president of the Corp. for National Research Initiatives. An ARPAnet pioneer at BBN in the late 1960s, Kahn was an Internet architect and co-inventor of TCP/IP while at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the 1970s. Anthes quotes Barker saying: ÒItÕs not clear in the National Information Infrastructure thereÕs going to be anyone around who knows enough about all the pieces to make something work or, if something goes wrong, to fix it. The challenge is how to prevent that scenario from becoming the showstopper.Ó
Biography:Robert E. (Bob) Kahn was hired by Lawrence Roberts at IPTO in 1972 to work on networking technologies. He organized a demonstration of ARPAnet between 40 machines and a Terminal Interface Processor at International Conference on Computer Communications that year, sharing the idea of the network for the first time with a group of observers from around the world. In 1973, he posed the Internet problem and began a research program at ARPA to look into it, setting four goals for design: 1) any network should be able to connect with any other; 2) there will be no central distribution or control; error recovery Ð lost packets will be retransmitted; 4) no internal changes will have to be made to a computer to connect it to the network. In 1973 he presented his basic Internet ideas with Vinton Cerf at the International Network Working Group gathering. In 1974 he published (with Cerf) a paper on Packet Network interconnection that detailed the design of a Transmission Control Program (TCP). (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: The History of the Future
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 43
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne