Peter Thomas Kirstein (néKirschstein; 20 June 1933 – 8 January 2020) was a British computer scientist who played a role in the creation of the Internet. He made the first internetworking connection on the ARPANET in 1973, by providing a link to British academic networks, and was instrumental in defining and implementing TCP/IP alongside Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.
Kirstein is often recognized as the "father of the European Internet".[3][4]
Education and early life
Kirstein was born on 20 June 1933 in Berlin, Germany, the son of Eleanor (Jacobsohn) and Walter Kirschstein.[5] His parents were dentists, and his father was awarded the Iron Cross during WWI. His family was Jewish and his mother had British citizenship from being born in London, so, fearing for their safety in Nazi governed-Germany the family immigrated to the UK in 1937.[5]
He was a member of the staff at CERN from 1959 to 1963. He did research for General Electric at Zurich from 1963 to 1967. He knew Vint Cerf since 1967.[7]
Research led by Bob Kahn at DARPA and Vint Cerf at Stanford University and later DARPA resulted in the formulation of the Transmission Control Program (TCP),[16] with its RFC675 specification written by Cerf with Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine in December 1974. The following year, testing began through concurrent implementations at Stanford, University College London and BBN.[17] The ARPANET connection to UCL later grew into the trans-Atlantic SATNET. A two-way, followed by a three-way internetworking experiment linking UCL, via SATNET, with nodes in the ARPANET, and with a mobile vehicle in PRNET took place in 1977.
Kirstein and his team members participated in the Internet Experiment Note meetings beginning in March 1977.[note 1] His research group at UCL played a significant role in the very earliest experimental work on what became the TCP/IP.[18][19] In 1978, early in the development of the TCP/IP, Kirstein co-authored (with Vint Cerf) one of the most significant early technical papers on the internetworking concept.[20] He chaired the International Cooperation Board (ICB), formed by Cerf in 1979, to coordinate activities to develop packet satellite research.[18][21] UCL adopted TCP/IP in November 1982, ahead of the ARPANET, becoming one of the first nodes on the Internet.[22][23]
In early 1983, Kirstein chaired the International Collaboration Board, which involved six NATO countries, served on the Networking Panel of the NATO Science Committee (serving as chair in 2001), and served on Advisory Committees for the Australian Research Council, the Canadian Department of Communications, the German GMD, and the Indian Education and Research Network (ERNET) Project.[24] He led the Silk Project, which provides satellite-based Internet access to the Newly Independent States in the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia.[24]
Kirstein died from a brain tumour on the morning of 8 January 2020 while in his home. Shortly after his death, Steve Hailes, Head of Department for UCL Computer Science, wrote about him:
"Peter was very widely recognised as a pioneer of the Internet and has many honours to his name [...] Much of this was undoubtedly down to an incredibly logical mind, coupled with a level of interest, vision and determination that saw him retire only late last year at the age of 86. [...] Peter was also deeply empathetic and sensitive: he was both gentleman and a gentle man, he was a source of encouragement and sage advice, he was persuasive, open-minded, fair and never afraid to learn something new or to admit that he didn't know."[27][5]
^See also the Final Report of the Stanford University TCP project, IEN 151., written by Cerf in 1980. This was originally, in TCP version 2 in 1977 (IEN5), to be entitled "Final Report of the Internetwork TCP Project" and to be written by Cerf [Stanford], Stephen Edge [UCL], Andrew Hinchley [UCL], Richard Karp [Stanford], Peter T. Kirstein [UCL], and Paal Spilling [NDRE]. This title was carried over into version 3 (IEN21) and into the list of references in version 4 but the present title was adopted in the preface (IEN55).
^Kirstein, Peter T. (2009). "The early history of packet switching in the UK". IEEE Communications Magazine. 47 (2): 18–26. doi:10.1109/MCOM.2009.4785372. S2CID34735326.
^Cerf, V.; Kahn, R. (1974). "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication"(PDF). IEEE Transactions on Communications. 22 (5): 637–648. CiteSeerX10.1.1.113.7384. doi:10.1109/TCOM.1974.1092259. ISSN1558-0857. The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
^by Vinton Cerf, as told to Bernard Aboba (1993). "How the Internet Came to Be". Archived from the original on 26 September 2017. Retrieved 25 September 2017. We began doing concurrent implementations at Stanford, BBN, and University College London. So effort at developing the Internet protocols was international from the beginning. ... Mar '82 - Norway leaves the ARPANET and become an Internet connection via TCP/IP over SATNET. Nov '82 - UCL leaves the ARPANET and becomes an Internet connection.
^Cerf, V. G.; Kirstein, P. T. (1978). "Issues in packet-network interconnection". Proceedings of the IEEE. 66 (11): 1386. doi:10.1109/PROC.1978.11147. S2CID27658511.
