Stephen D. Crocker (born October 15, 1944 in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

) is the inventor of the Request for Comments

Request for Comments

In computer network engineering, a Request for Comments is a memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.Through the Internet Society, engineers and...

 series, authoring the very first RFC and many more. He received his bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 (1968) and PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 (1977) from the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. Crocker is chair of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN.

Steve Crocker has worked in the Internet community since its inception. As a UCLA graduate student in the 1960s, Steve Crocker helped create the ARPANET

ARPANET

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...

 protocols which were the foundation for today's Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

. For this work, Crocker was awarded the 2002 IEEE Internet Award

IEEE Internet Award

IEEE Internet Award is a Technical Field Award of the IEEE that was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in June 1999. The award is sponsored by Nokia Corporation. It may currently be presented annually to an individual or up to three recipients, for exceptional contributions to the...

.

While at UCLA Crocker taught an extension course on computer programming (for the IBM 7094 mainframe computer

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

). The class was intended to teach digital processing and assembly language programming to high school teachers, so that they could offer such courses in their high schools. A number of high school students were also admitted to the course, to ensure that they would be able to understand this new discipline. Crocker was also active in the newly formed UCLA Computer Club.

Crocker has been a program manager at Advanced Research Projects Agency

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...

 (ARPA), a senior researcher at USC

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

's Information Sciences Institute

Information Sciences Institute

The Information Sciences Institute is a research and development unit of the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering which focuses on computer and communications technology and information processing...

, founder and director of the Computer Science Laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation

The Aerospace Corporation

The Aerospace Corporation is a private, non-profit corporation headquartered in El Segundo, California that has operated a Federally Funded Research and Development Center for the United States Air Force since 1960...

 and a vice president at Trusted Information Systems

Trusted Information Systems

Trusted Information Systems was a computer security research and development company during the 1980s and 1990s, performing computer and communications security research for organizations such as NSA, DARPA, ARL, AFRL, SPAWAR, and others.TIS was founded in 1983 by NSA veteran Steve Walker, and at...

. In 1994, Crocker was one of the founders and chief technology officer of CyberCash, Inc. In 1998, he founded and ran Executive DSL, a DSL-based

Digital Subscriber Line

Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ,...

 ISP. In 1999 he cofounded and was CEO of Longitude Systems. He is currently CEO of Shinkuro, a research and development company.

Steve Crocker was instrumental in creating the ARPA "Network Working Group", which later was the context in which the IETF was created.

He has also been an IETF security area director, a member of the Internet Architecture Board

Internet Architecture Board

The Internet Architecture Board is the committee charged with oversight of the technical and engineering development of the Internet by the Internet Society ....

, chair of the ICANN

ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, United States, that was created on September 18, 1998, and incorporated on September 30, 1998 to oversee a number of Internet-related tasks previously performed directly...

 Security and Stability Advisory Committee, a board member of the Internet Society

Internet Society

The Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in Internet related standards, education, and policy...

 and numerous other Internet-related volunteer positions.

External links

• RFC 1
• RFC 1776
• Shinkuro.com executive team info
• Steve Crocker is a Geek!
• Oral history interview with Stephen Crocker, Charles Babbage Institute
  Charles Babbage Institute
  The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
  
  , University of Minnesota. Crocker discusses computer networks, artificial intelligence research, and his work at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
  
   (DARPA); interactions with other DARPA personnel including Cordell Green, Barry Wessler, Larry Roberts
  Lawrence Roberts (scientist)
  Lawrence G. Roberts received the Draper Prize in 2001 and the Principe de Asturias Award in 2002 "for the development of the Internet" along with Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Kahn, and Vinton Cerf....
  
  , Bob Kahn
  Bob Kahn
  Robert Elliot Kahn is an American Internet pioneer, engineer and computer scientist, who, along with Vinton G. Cerf, invented the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol , the fundamental communication protocols at the heart of the Internet.-Career:After receiving a B.E.E...
  
  , and David Russell. He discusses his work as a program manager in the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).