Press Release

The Computer History Museum Kicks Off Commemorative 'Net@40' Speaker Series

Mountain View, California  |  April 21, 2010

The Computer History Museum (CHM) today kicked off its Net@40 lecture series to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the computer networking revolution that led to the Internet. The inaugural Net@40 talk, of the year-long program, is “Hackers and Phishers and Carders, Oh My!” tonight at 7 p.m., a panel on the past and future of cyber-crime. All events are free and open to the public.

“What began as a radical and difficult idea 40 years ago—making computers connect and communicate over a network—has today transformed our world,” said John C. Hollar, President and Chief Executive Officer of CHM.  “The results are well known, and with this series of programs we aim to give the stories and the people an equally high profile.  The ambition is only fitting—it’s one of the most profound developments of the Information Age.”

Series Kickoff Event

Net@40: Hackers and Phishers and Carders, Oh My! (April 21 at 7 p.m.)

Stalking, scams, theft, underhanded business tactics, vandalism and the like have existed for millennia, and have found ways to exploit emerging technologies from check writing to the telegraph. The Internet age is no exception. The panel will examine the kinds of threats out there, how they've evolved, and what the future may hold.  Panelists include:

  • Dave Cole, Senior Director, Symantec Consumer Products
  • Matthew Parrella, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Chief, Computer Hacking/Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit, U.S. Attorney’s Office
  • Audrey Plonk, Global Security & Internet Policy Specialist, Security & Privacy Policy Team, Intel Corporation
  • Rachna Dhamija, CEO, Usable Security Systems

Moderator: Kevin Poulsen, Senior Editor, WIRED

What’s Next?

Net@40: Visionary Pioneer Bob Taylor in Conversation with NPR's Guy Raz (May 13 at 7 p.m.)

Bob Taylor and Guy Raz, weekend host of NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered, will share a stage to discuss the process of fostering innovation and share stories of how radical ideas evolve. Taylor’s interests – and his genius for getting them funded – helped develop computer networking, the personal computer, and many of the other technologies that drove the global computer revolution.  "A world without Bob Taylor would very likely be a world without the Internet as we know it today.  In just a blip of earth's history – 40 short years – computer-to-computer communication has become indispensable and unimaginable,” said Raz. “On the weekend version of NPR’s All Things Considered we've been marking the milestone of its development with our series "The Net at 40."  We've had the great privilege of working with the Computer History Museum and its talented staff to produce on-air and on-line conversations and stories about how far we've come since that night in October 1969 when two young programmers sent a message over Bob Taylor's ARPANET.  I'm delighted that Bob has agreed to share his story at the Museum."

Coming This Summer

Net@40: The Facebook Effect author David Kirkpatrick and Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in conversation with NPR’s Guy Raz (July 21, 7 p.m.)

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckberg will take a seat alongside David Kirkpatrick, longtime Internet and tech editor for Fortune Magazine and author of the upcoming book, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World (June 2010) for a conversation with NPR’s Guy Raz. The book is published by Simon & Schuster.

Net@40: Dr. Genevieve Bell, Intel Fellow with NPR's Laura Sydell on the Internet and its Cultural Impact  (Aug. 19 at 7 p.m.)

Genevieve Bell is an Intel Fellow and director of the User Experience Group within the Intel Digital Home Group at Intel Corporation. Bell joined Intel in 1998 as a researcher in Corporate Technology Group's People and Practices Research team - Intel's first social science oriented research team. She helped drive the company's first non-U.S. field studies to inform business group strategy and products and conducted groundbreaking work in urban Asia in the early 2000s. 

Laura Sydell, NPR Correspondent, reports on the ways in which technology is changing culture. She tells the stories of everyone from high-profile CEOs, to small inventors, to help illustrate how technology is changing the way people create and live. 

More details and additional panelists to be announced.

Support for the Net@40 Series

Major funding for the Net@40 series is provided by Intel Corporation. Additional funding is provided by Symantec Corporation. All events are free of charge and will be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

For more event information and updates from the Computer History Museum, become a fan on Facebook and follow @computerhistory on Twitter.

To learn about the events 40 years ago that kicked off our connected world, click on “October 29, 1969” at www.computerhistory.org. 

Internet History Program at CHM

CHM’s Internet History Program is the first at a major institution dedicated to recording the history of today’s networking revolution, including the Web and the Internet. 

About the Computer History Museum

The Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View, Calif. is a nonprofit organization with a four-decade history. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history, and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world, encompassing computer hardware, software, documentation, ephemera, photographs and moving images.

CHM brings computer history to life through an acclaimed speaker series, dynamic website, onsite tours, as well as physical and online exhibits. Current exhibits include, Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, Mastering the Game: A History of Computer Chess, and Innovation in the Valley—A Look at Silicon Valley Startups. The online exhibit, featuring the Timeline of Computer History and over 600 key objects from Visible Storage, is found at:  www.computerhistory.org

Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing will open physically and online in January 2011. It will include the first permanent exhibit chronicling the origins of the Web and the Internet.  

For more information, visit www.computerhistory.org or call (650) 810-1059.

Press Contacts

Amy Jackson
amy@eastwick.com
(650) 810-1059

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