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Comment by wjoe | Hacker News Reader

I've noticed that American articles cite Vint Cerf as the "father/inventor of the internet", while British press give the same titles to Tim Berners-Lee. Of course both were instrumental, but as you say, many people and teams were involved in the creation of what we know as the Internet today.

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Being in the UK I don't see a valid claim to TBL's involvement in the creation of the Internet.

I see it more as Vint Cerf being instrumental in the creation of the Internet, and Tim-Berners Lee of the world-wide web.

Now, if any one person were to be credited for the creation of the Internet as a whole, that honour would undoubtedly go to Al Gore.

Exhibit A: https://goo.gl/X8D3yb

It is funny in a sense because TBL really invented the 'internet' as people know it, Vint Cerf just created that pesky TCP/IP thing nerds talk about.

It's such a great piece of political rhetoric that pushed the false idea of Al Gore claiming to have "invented the Internet". If you accept that Vint Cerf was a key person in the creation of the Internet as we know it, you'll probably be interested in his opinion of Al Gore's actual role.

https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler/misc/funny/gore,net.txt

Here's an excerpt from the first paragraphs:

Al Gore and the Internet

By Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf

Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the Internet and to promote and support its development.

No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among people in government and the university community. But as the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.

Agreed, it's one of the few "popular comments" that irks me enough to force someone into an argument when it's quipped in ignorance.

Specifically because Gore has been a supporter of science in general as a politician.

Makes me sad to think that if a Supreme Court decision had gone another way, or Florida had had a different ballot, then the US would have ended up with a technocrat in office and probably not invading Iraq. Missed opportunities...

I should maybe mention that I meant this in jest - I think very highly of Al Gore and the joke was intended to allude to Cerf's high opinion of his role in the early days.

I don't think Al Gore claimed to have literally invented the Internet, and believed that was the gag this whole time.

Have people been walking around thinking he actually believed that this whole time?

I'm not sure this needs to be relitigated here.

In Belgium, it's sometimes said that Robert Cailliau is the father of the internet :)

I like to think that a bunch of people worked on a bunch of technologies which together became "The Internet".

Other notable people are Robert Metcalfe, David Boggs, Robert Taylor, Charles Herzfeld, Douglas Engelbart, ...

What's actually upsetting is that outside of a few niche communities, the world hasn't heard of any of these people, and doesn't care.

As an American, I've never heard of Vint Cerf until today, but have known of Tim Berners-Lee for years

In terms of inventions, Tim Berners Lee is associated with the World Wide Web while Vint Cerf is associated with Internet. Is this different in the USA and British?

Most people don't realize that there is a difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet.

Back in the olden days, before http, before URL's, before html, before all these kids were on my lawn, you could actually use (pun intended) the net, without using the world wide web.

Was there shitposting then?

Oh yes. Shitposting galore.

And then September came and never left.

I can feel the age getting at my bones.

As an American who grew up in the US, I've only ever heard TBL cited as the inventor/father of the web (or sometimes internet), and have never heard of Vint Cerf before as best I can recall. Anecdata, for what it's worth.

The Internet and the World Wide Web are two different things.

Sadly neither of those men are named Jon Postel.

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