Vinton Cerf, often known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet”, was featured in a talk presented by The City Arts and Lectures, held in San Francisco on April 29.

For those who don’t know, Cerf was the co-designer, with Robert Kahn, of the TCP/IP protocols that founded the essential architecture of the Internet. He worked on building what would become Internet protocols as a graduate student. He now has the role of Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.

Cerf was brilliant and charming.  The audience listened intently to his anecdotes and stories about what grew to become the Internet – and so much a part of our daily lives. His talk was supposed to be focused on the Internet of Things, but ended up being wide-ranging and provided a lot of food for thought.

As we celebrate nearly 26 years of the Internet, Cerf’s shared that early Internet security considerations were hampered because work on public key cryptography systems remained top secret.

As Cerf noted in a video interview here:

“I worked with the National Security Agency on the design of a secured version of the Internet but we used classified security technology at the time and I couldn’t share that with my colleagues… If I could start over again I would have introduced a lot more strong authentication and cryptography into the system.”

Specifically in terms of the Internet of Things, Cerf said, it has a great capacity to reduce waste and costs in our everyday lives, but he also noted it definitely has security issues.

Cerf also detailed the fine line between the accessibility of digital data and the right to privacy. This is something he has obviously considered for a long time.

He chose healthcare as one example, where a patient’s heartbeat and temperature can be digitized, and that it is a great tool for medical professionals, but as Cerf said it “wields both ways,” as a hacker or crook would love to know the state of your health or when you’re going to be in the hospital.

Hearing the talk made me wonder what better security and encryption would have meant from the get-go for the Internet. Theoretically, it could have saved us many of the cybersecurity issues we face today.

Interestingly, as a backdrop, Cerf’s talk came on the heels of news of the White House being hacked. The White House had a data breach where Russian hackers apparently gained access to its unclassified computer system. This was reported back in October, but lightly, and now new details are emerging.

The good news is this hack didn’t include classified emails and information. The bad news: The hackers reportedly first breached the State Department system –via a phishing scam –and from there gained access to the White House network. You can read more in The New York Times article.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and the Internet is all about moving forward.

We all know cybersecurity issues will only become more important with IoT. If we are to change the course of cybercrime, it will require great minds like Vint Cerf along with champions for cybersecurity in both the private and public sector, more vigilance by businesses and better educated consumers who proactively take responsibility for their own cyber security. We’re certainly committed to doing our part.

You can hear Vint Cerf’s Internet of Things interview broadcast on City Arts & Lectures on Public Radio in the U.S. on May 24.

Title image courtesy of The Guardian