Vint Cerf, one of the "Fathers of the Internet," came to D.C. last night to talk about the growth and future of his intellectual baby and how it is evolving into physical space with the Internet of Things. Cerf spoke in a conversation with Startup Grind's Brian Park Monday night at Google's D.C. headquarters. Cerf gets his title for co-inventing a lot of the basic structure of the Internet, especially the protocols that make email possible. Now he is focused on all kinds of big projects that Google is working on and the future of the Internet itself.
When it comes to the Internet of Things, Cerf said that a key aspect that all developers have to keep in mind is security. That's a very big topic recently with the major problem in most Internet of Things systems uncovered by the so-called "Shellshock" security flaw. Indeed, according to one study, the Internet of Things is 70 percent hackable. No wonder then that Cerf wants to emphasize security in the systems.
"Strong authentication is important," Cerf said. " We need to make sure they are only talking to the devices they are supposed to talk to."
Google has been making its way into the Internet of Things specifically with its recent purchase of Nest, a startup heavily involved in smart home devices like thermostats and security devices. It recently started expanding its reach in a new partnership with Airbnb to get its smart thermostats into Airbnb host homes. Park mentioned local Internet of Things startup SmartThings getting bought by Samsung for $200 million as another example and Cerf agreed that the competition in that realm is going to start heating up, before tying it back to the security concerns and why it's important to get that right. Even attacks on smart refrigerators could be enough to bring down major baking networks if performed the right way without security.
In his role as Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, Cerf can basically play around with whatever project takes his fancy as part of his job to to talk up the Internet and all of the tangential opportunities it provides. Park ran through a whole slew of the projects Google is working on and Cerf had positive things to say about all of them, whether about how Google Glass is less distracting than looking at a phone, or enthusing about self-driving cars, a subject closely related to the Internet of Things. Interestingly, the biggest problem with Google cars is the people inside them according to Cerf.
"We will have to take out the steering wheel and the pedals," he said, explaining that people tended to panic if the Google car said it needed a human to help, making things worse than if the car were just programmed to handle everything on their own. That means programming the cars to be super paranoid about the cars around it, and having them assume that the people in those cars will not act rationally according to Cerf.
Despite the very real concerns about the growth of the Internet into physical space, Cerf was mostly very optimistic about the future as far as technology goes. He was very encouraging toward the entrepreneurs and startup founders listening to him speak and said there will be a lot of real opportunity for them in times to come if they look for the places that the new architecture of the Internet is opening up, arguably the world that where he will be called Grandfather.
