Oct 12, 2006

Computer legends discuss future of the Web

By Banks Albach

Buying a pair of shoes online doesn't remind the average consumer of four middle-aged guys in a museum talking about what made the Internet a shopping mall and a dating zone.

But they each had a hand in making it, including John Cioffi, a Stanford electrical engineering professor who will be named a Marconi Foundation fellow tonight for his work in pioneering digital subscriber lines, or DSL.

"I see a nice future of much higher bandwidths," Cioffi said. "There are 40 million DSL subscribers on the world per year. All signs are that will triple in the next five or six years."

Cioffi joined Internet and computer legends Leonard Kleinrock, Martin Hellman and Federico Faggin in a panel Wednesday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View to discuss the Internet: where its from, how it's working today and where it might go.

"It was a special time," Kleinrock said, referring to his work on Arpanet, the U.S. military's late 1960s run-up to the network we surf today. "They said, 'Look guys, we want a network, go make it.'"

It was that freedom, he said, that brought into life the Internet that hosts innovative companies such as eBay, Paypal and Google.

The discussion Wednesday made it clear how the Internet gurus helped usher in the era of the online shopping mall.

Kleinrock helped invent packet-switching, which breaks apart data, such as an e-mail, into thousands of pieces for digital transfer and then reassembles it when it arrives at a destination. Videos and pictures are sent in the same way.

Federico built one of the first computer processors. His had only 2,300 transistors, which he built by hand. Today's Pentium and Athlon processors - a major selling point on computers - have nearly 40 million transistors and are designed using 3-D software.

Without Hellman's invention, consumers wouldn't be able to shop securely online. He invented digital encryption and said people don't realize how often they use it.

"Sometimes I'll ask a room full of people: 'How many of you have ever used encryption online' and no hands go up," he said. "But when I ask: 'How many of you have ever bought something online with a credit card' and everyone raises their hand."

His encryption masks those precious 16-digit numbers as they shoot through copper wires.

But the four were quick to point out that the rise of the Internet was due to more than just data packets, wires and kilobytes - there's a social reason as well.

"When e-mail came, we realized it's not about computers, its about people," Kleinrock said.

Or, Faggin said, look at eBay and mobile online technology.

"You can do so many things you could never do before," he said.

The Marconi Foundation has recognized scientists and researchers since 1975. It was set up about a year ago by Giola Marconi Braga, daughter of Gugliemo Marconi, who is credited with inventing the radio.

E-mail Banks Albach at balbach@dailynewsgroup.com.