Protocols & the ARPANET
Founded the Network Working Group, began the RFC series and led the design of the Network Control Program (NCP), the ARPANET's host-to-host protocol.
Internet Pioneer · Computer Scientist
Steve Crocker
Author of RFC 1, architect of the ARPANET's first host-to-host protocols, and for more than five decades a steward of the open, collaborative Internet: from a UCLA lab in 1969 to the Chair of ICANN.
Dr. Stephen D. CrockerB.A. ’68 · Ph.D. ’77 UCLA
RFC 17 April 1969
ICANN Chair2011 – 2017
1969
Year he wrote RFC 1, the first Request for Comments
9,000+
RFCs since published in the series he started
14
Years on ICANN's Board of Directors, 2003–2017
50+
Years building and guiding the Internet
Where it began
It started with a request, not a command.
In April 1969 a UCLA graduate student wrote a modest memo titled Host Software. It became RFC 1, the first of the documents that still define how the Internet works.
Steve Crocker helped found the Network Working Group, the forerunner of the Internet Engineering Task Force. He also led the graduate students, among them Vint Cerf and Jon Postel, who designed the ARPANET's host-to-host protocol. The open, consensus-driven culture he set in motion remains the Internet's way of building itself.
Explore ARPANET & the RFCs$ cat rfc1.txt Network Working Group Steve Crocker Request for Comments: 1 UCLA 7 April 1969 Title: Host Software INTRODUCTION The software for the ARPA Network exists partly in the IMPs and partly in the respective HOSTs.
A career across the stack
Research, security, enterprise, governance
Academia, government, industry and the global Internet community: few people have shaped the network from as many sides.
Research leadership
Managed research at DARPA and founded the Computer Science Laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation. Later served as the IETF's Security Area Director.
Building companies
Co-founded CyberCash, an early Internet payments pioneer, then Executive DSL and Longitude Systems. Today he leads the R&D firm Shinkuro.
Global governance
Served on ICANN's Board for 14 years, as Vice Chair and then Chair from 2011 to 2017, and chaired its Security and Stability Advisory Committee.
Internet architecture
Member of the Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Society's Board of Trustees, helping steer the standards process he started.
Hall of Fame pioneer
Inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in its inaugural 2012 class; IEEE Internet Award, Postel Award, ACM Fellow.
See all honors“So we certainly weren’t going to call our technical memos ‘standards’ or ‘orders.’”
From 1969 to today
Follow five decades of the network
From the first ARPANET protocols to global Internet governance, trace the career of one of the people who made the Internet possible.