We’re coming to the end of the most enjoyable trip to Washington. The purpose of the trip was to collect information on Network Solutions Inc. (NSI) — how it operated — and the dynamic environment of the Internet in its early days. The book we’re working on will go from the very beginning, up through SAIC’s tenure, to the turnover to VeriSign. There are many people we need to talk to about the creation of the Internet, and we did some of those interviews while we were there, including Jay Killeen, George Strawn, Gabe Battista, Bob Korzeniewski, Phil Sbarbaro, Steve Lukasik, and Jonathan Emery. On Wednesday afternoon we drove to Rockville, Maryland, to visit the Venter Institute. We got the grand tour of the ocean sampling and biomedical work they are doing. They have ambitious plans to continue to see if they can develop a synthetic cell — essentially, artificial life. They are reasonably close to meeting this objective. All in all a very productive week. If you have any interesting stories about your role in the early days of the Internet, please post them here.
— Bob