Stephen D. Crocker (born October 15, 1944 in Pasadena, California) is the inventor of the Request for Comments series, authoring the very first RFC and many more. He received his bachelor's degree (1968) and PhD (1977) from the University of California, Los Angeles. 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 protocols which were the foundation for today's Internet. For this work, Crocker was awarded the 2002 IEEE Internet Award.
While at UCLA Crocker taught an extension course on computer programming (for the IBM 7094 mainframe computer). 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 (ARPA), a senior researcher at USC's Information Sciences Institute, founder and director of the Computer Science Laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation and a vice president at Trusted Information Systems. 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 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, chair of the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, a board member of the Internet Society and numerous other Internet-related volunteer positions.
In 2012, Crocker was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame by the Internet Society.
Famous quotes containing the words steve and/or crocker:
“Y’know plenty of people, in their right mind, thought they saw things that didn’t exist, y’know, like flying saucers. The light was just right, and the angle and the imagination. Oh boy, if that’s what it is, then this is just an ordinary night. You and I are going to go home and go to sleep and tomorrow when we get up that sun’s gonna shine. Just like yesterday. Good ol’ yesterday.”
—Theodore Simonson. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.. Steve Andrews (Steven McQueen)
“Mothers have as powerful an influence over the welfare of future generations, as all other causes combined.”
—John Abbott. The Mother at Home; or the Principles of Maternal Duty, John Abbott, Crocker and Brewster (1833)