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