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Jon Postel
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==Career== Postel attended [[Van Nuys High School]],<ref name="wizards">{{cite book |last1=Hafner |first1=Katie |last2=Lyon |first2=Matthew |title=Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1996 |isbn=0-684-81201-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/wherewizardsstay00haf_vgj/page/137 137] |quote=Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf had been best friends since attending Van Nuys High School in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley.... While Cerf and Crocker were academic stars, Postel, who was twenty-five, had had a more checkered academic career. He had grown up in nearby Glendale and Sherman Oaks, and he too had attended Van Nuys High School, where his grades were mediocre. |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/wherewizardsstay00haf_vgj/page/137 }}</ref> and then [[UCLA]] where he earned his B.S. (1966) as well as his M.S. (1968) in Engineering. There he completed his Ph.D. in computer science in 1974, with [[Dave Farber]] as his thesis advisor. [[File:Internet map in February 82.png|thumb|left|Map of the Internet, created by Jon Postel in 1982]] Postel started work at UCLA on 23 December 1969 as a Postgraduate Research Engineer (I) where he was involved in early work on the [[ARPANET]]. He was involved in the development of the Internet domain system and, at his instigation, [[Vint Cerf]] and [[Bob Kahn]] developed a second set of protocols for handling data between networks, which is now known as [[Internet protocol suite]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet and Its Founders|last=Banks|first=Michael|publisher=Apress|year=2008|isbn=9781430208693|location=Berkeley, CA|pages=[https://archive.org/details/onwaytoweb00mich/page/76 76]|url=https://archive.org/details/onwaytoweb00mich/page/76}}</ref> Together with Cerf and [[Steve Crocker]], Postel worked on implementing most of the ARPANET protocols.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace|last=Mueller|first=Milton L.|publisher=MIT Press|year=2009|isbn=9780262263795|location=Cambridge, MA|pages=75}}</ref> Cerf would later become one of the principal designers of the TCP/IP standard,<ref name=":0" /> which works because of the sentence known as [[Robustness principle|Postel's Law]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Building an Intelligence-Led Security Program|last=Liska|first=Allan|publisher=Syngress|year=2015|isbn=9780128021453|location=Waltham, MA|pages=1}}</ref> Postel worked with ARPANET until 24 August 1973 when he left to join [[MITRE Corporation]]. He assisted with [[InterNIC|Network Information Center]], which was being set up at [[SRI International|SRI]] by [[Elizabeth Feinler]]. In March 1977, he joined the [[Information Sciences Institute]] at the [[University of Southern California]] as a research scientist.<ref>{{cite web |title= USC Memorial Tribute for Jonathan B. Postel |date= November 5, 1998 |publisher= University of Southern California |url= http://www.usc.edu/webcast/archive/events/postel/ |access-date= April 8, 2011 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110521181650/http://www.usc.edu/webcast/archive/events/postel/ |archive-date= May 21, 2011 |df= mdy-all }}</ref> Postel was the [[Request for Comments|RFC]] Editor from 1969 until his death, and wrote and edited many important RFCs, including RFC 791, RFC 792 and RFC 793, which define the basic protocols of the [[Internet protocol suite]], and RFC 2223, ''Instructions to RFC Authors''. Between 1982 and 1984 Postel co-authored the RFCs which became the foundation of today's [[DNS]] (RFC 819, RFC 881, RFC 882 and RFC 920) which were joined in 1995 by RFC 1591 which he also co-wrote. In total, he wrote or co-authored more than 20 RFCs.<ref>{{cite web |title= Datatracker profile for Jon Postel |publisher= IETF |url= https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/postel@isi.edu }}</ref> Postel served on the [[Internet Architecture Board]] and its predecessors for many years. He was the Director of the names and number assignment clearinghouse, the [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority]] (IANA), from its inception. He was the first member of the [[Internet Society]], and was on its Board of Trustees. He was the original and long-time [[.us]] [[Top-Level Domain]] administrator. He also managed the Los Nettos Network. All of the above were part-time activities he assumed in conjunction with his primary position as Director of the Computer Networks Division, Division 7, of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California.<ref>*{{cite web |title= Jon Postel Biography |date= June 5, 1997 |url= http://www.isi.edu/div7/people/postel.home/bio.html |access-date= April 8, 2011 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/19981206211527/http://www.isi.edu/div7/people/postel.home/bio.html |archive-date= December 6, 1998 |website= isi.edu }} *{{cite web|url=http://www.isi.edu/div7/|title=USC/ISI Computer Networks Division ("Div 7")|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050817221312/http://www.isi.edu/div7/|archive-date=August 17, 2005|website=isi.edu}} *{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010424122813/http://www.postel.org/remembrances/|title=Remembering Jonathan B. Postel|archive-date=April 24, 2001|url=http://www.postel.org/remembrances/|website=postel.org}} *{{cite web|url=http://www.isoc.org/postel/|title=In Memory of Jon Postel|publisher=Internet Society|website=isoc.org|access-date=August 1, 2003|archive-date=August 14, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180814053702/http://www.isoc.org/postel/|url-status=dead}} *{{cite news |title= Jonathan B. Postel 1943β1998 |publisher= USC Trojan Family Magazine |date= Spring 1999 |last1= Calverley |first1= Bob |last2= Krieger |first2= Dianne |url= http://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/spring99/Postel/postel.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/19991023133344/https://www.usc.edu/dept/pubrel/trojan_family/spring99/Postel/postel.html |archive-date= October 23, 1999 |access-date= April 8, 2011 |website= usc.edu }}</ref> ===DNS Root Authority test, U.S. response=== [[File:Jon Postel (full frame).jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Postel in 1994 with map of Internet top-level domains]] On January 28, 1998, Postel, as a test, emailed eight of the twelve operators of Internet's regional [[root nameserver]]s on his own authority and instructed them to reconfigure their servers,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B88ZAgAAQBAJ&dq=jon+postel&pg=PT25|title=Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know|last1=Singer|first1=P. W.|last2=Friedman|first2=Allan|date=2013-12-04|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199364572|language=en}}</ref> changing the root zone server from then [[Leidos|SAIC]] subsidiary [[Network Solutions]]' A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (198.41.0.4) to IANA's DNSROOT.IANA.ORG (198.32.1.98). The operators complied with Postel's instructions, thus dividing control of Internet naming between the non-government operators with IANA and the 4 remaining U.S. Government roots at [[NASA]], [[United States Department of Defense|DoD]], and [[Ballistics Research Laboratory|BRL]] with NSI. Though usage of the Internet was not interrupted, Postel was threatened by US Presidential science advisor [[Ira Magaziner]] with the statement "You'll never work on the Internet again" and was ordered to end the test,<ref> *{{cite news |title=Taking the wrong root? |date=February 4, 1998 |first=Sandra |last=Gittlen |publisher=NetworkWorld.com |url=http://www.networkworld.com/news/0204postel.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308200824/http://www.networkworld.com/news/0204postel.html |archive-date=March 8, 2012 |df=mdy-all }} *{{cite news |title=Surprise IP address system test creates a stir |date=February 9, 1998 |first=Sandra |last=Gittlen |publisher=[[Network World]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hBsEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA14 }} *{{cite news |title=One Man's Attempt to Reroute Internet Traffic |date=February 9, 1998 |first=Kate |last=Gerwig |publisher=InternetWeek.com |url=http://www.internetwk.com/news/news0209-2.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111005171457/http://www.internetwk.com/news/news0209-2.htm |archive-date=October 5, 2011 |df=mdy-all}} *{{cite news |title=It's time for ICANN to go |date=July 2, 2002 |first=Damien |last=Cave |work=Salon.com |url=http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2002/07/02/gilmore/print.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722170621/http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2002/07/02/gilmore/print.html |archive-date=July 22, 2011 |df=mdy-all}} *{{cite web |title=a comment on Gilmore: ICANN Must Go (good insights) |first=Dave |last=Farber |publisher=Interesting-People|date=July 2, 2002 |url=http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200207/msg00011.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525113933/http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200207/msg00011.html |archive-date=May 25, 2010 |df=mdy-all }}</ref> which he did.<ref>{{cite news|title=Internet reconfiguration turns out to be rogue test |last=Bridis |first=Ted ([[The Associated Press|AP]]) |date=February 5, 1998 |newspaper=[[The Daily News (Kentucky)]] |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=q88aAAAAIBAJ&pg=2900,539368&dq=the+clinton+administration+said+wednesday+it+was+confident+a+researcher&hl=en}}</ref> Within a week, the US [[National Telecommunications and Information Administration|NTIA]] issued ''A proposal to improve technical management of Internet names and addresses'', including changes to authority over the Internet [[DNS root zone]],<ref>{{cite web|title=A proposal to improve technical management of Internet names and addresses. Discussion Draft 1/30/98 |publisher=NTIA.org |date=January 30, 1998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980207224402/http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/dnsdrft.htm |archive-date=February 7, 1998 |url=http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/dnsdrft.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> which ultimately, and controversially,<ref>{{cite web |title=Wrong turn in cyberspace: Using ICANN to route around the APA and the Constitution |first=A. Michael |last=Froomkin |author-link=Michael Froomkin |publisher= University of Miami School of Law |year=2000 |url=http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/articles/icann-body.htm}} (cited 50 Duke L. J. 17 (2000))</ref> increased U.S. control.<ref>{{cite web|title=Testing times for Net guardians |first=Kenneth |last=Cukier |date=February 16, 1998 |work=Communications Week International |url=http://www.totaltele.com/cwi/199/199news11.html |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990219094444/http://www.totaltele.com/cwi/199/199news11.html |archive-date=February 19, 1999 }}</ref>
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