Robert Elliot Kahn was born in December 1938 in New York to parents Beatrice Pauline (née Tashker) and Lawrence Kahn in an
Ashkenazi Jewish family.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Through his father, he is related to futurist
Herman Kahn. After receiving a
B.E.E. degree in
electrical engineering from the
City College of New York in 1960, Kahn went on to
Princeton University where he earned a
M.A. in 1962 and
Ph.D. in 1964, both in electrical engineering. At Princeton, he was advised by
Bede Liu and completed a doctoral dissertation titled "Some problems in the sampling and modulation of signals."[8][9]
In 1972 joined the
Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) within
DARPA. He then helped develop the TCP/IP protocols for connecting diverse computer networks. After he became director of IPTO, he started the United States government's billion dollar
Strategic Computing Initiative, the largest computer research and development program ever undertaken by the U.S. federal government.[13]
While working on the
SATNET satellite
packet network project, he came up with the initial ideas for what later became the
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which was intended as a replacement for an earlier network protocol,
NCP, used in the ARPANET. TCP played a major role in forming the basis of
internetworking, which would allow computers and networks all over the world to communicate with each other, regardless of what hardware or software the computers on each network used. To reach this goal, TCP was designed to have the following features:
Small sub-sections of the whole network would be able to talk to each other through a specialized computer that only forwarded packets (first called a gateway, and now called a
router).
No portion of the network would be the single point of failure, or would be able to control the whole network.
Each piece of information sent through the network would be given a
sequence number, to ensure that they were dealt with in the right order at the destination computer, and to detect the loss of any of them.
A computer which sent information to another computer would know that it was successfully received when the destination computer sent back a special packet, called an acknowledgement (
ACK), for that particular piece of information.
If information sent from one computer to another was lost, the information would be retransmitted, after the loss was detected by a timeout, which would recognize that the expected acknowledgement had not been received.
Each piece of information sent through the network would be accompanied by a
checksum, calculated by the original sender, and checked by the ultimate receiver, to ensure that it was not damaged in any way en route.
Vint Cerf joined him on the project in the spring of 1973, and together they completed an early version of TCP. Later, the protocol was separated into two separate layers: host-to-host communication would be handled by TCP, with
Internet Protocol (IP) handling internetwork communication.[15] The two together are usually referred to as TCP/IP, and form part of the basis for the modern Internet.
In 1992 he co-founded with Vint Cerf the
Internet Society, to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy.
Awards
In 1981, Bob Kahn was elevated to the grade of
IEEE fellow for original work in packet switching mobile radio telecommunications technology.[16] He was elected as a member to the
National Academy of Engineering in 1987 for research contributions in computer networks and packet switching, and for creative management contributions to research efforts in computers and communications. He was elected a Founding Fellow of
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1990.[17]
He was awarded the
SIGCOMM Award in 1993 for "visionary technical contributions and leadership in the development of
information systems technology", and shared the 2004
Turing Award with Vint Cerf, for "pioneering work on
internetworking, including .. the Internet's basic
communications protocols .. and for inspired leadership in networking."
Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn being awarded the Presidential Medal Of Freedom by President Bush
He is a recipient of the AFIPS Harry Goode Memorial Award, the Marconi Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the President's Award from ACM, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computer and Communications Award, the
IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the IEEE Third Millennium Medal, the
ACM Software Systems Award, the Computerworld/Smithsonian Award, the ASIS Special Award and the Public Service Award from the Computing Research Board. He has twice received the Secretary of Defense Civilian Service Award.
He was awarded the Stibitz-Wilson Award from the
American Computer & Robotics Museum in 1999 for Pioneering the Internet through Major Design and Development Contributor to the Original ARPANET NCP Protocol and Co-Inventor of the Internet's TCP/IP Protocol.[18]
In 2005 he was awarded the Townsend Harris Medal from the Alumni Association of the City College of New York, the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the C & C Prize in Tokyo, Japan.
He was inducted as a Fellow of the
Computer History Museum in 2006 "for pioneering technical contributions to internetworking and for leadership in the application of networks to scientific research."[20]
He was awarded the 2008
Japan Prize for his work in "Information Communication Theory and Technology" (together with Vinton Cerf).
Kahn received the 2024
IEEE Medal of Honor for "pioneering technical and leadership contributions in packet communication technologies and foundations of the Internet."[24]
Honorary degrees
Kahn has received honorary degrees from Princeton University, University of Pavia, ETH Zurich, University of Maryland, George Mason University, the University of Central Florida and the University of Pisa, and an honorary fellowship from University College, London.
^Pelkey, James L.
"6.1 The Communications Subnet: BBN 1969". Entrepreneurial Capitalism and Innovation: A History of Computer Communications 1968–1988. Kahn, the principal architect
^"Robert E Kahn". A. M. Turing Award. ACM. 2004. Archived from
the original on July 3, 2012. Retrieved January 23, 2010. For pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking.
^"Robert E Kahn". ACM Fellows. ACM. 2001. Retrieved January 23, 2010. For leadership in the design of the Internet, strategic computing, digital libraries, digital object infrastructure and digital intellectual property protection technology.
Oral history interview with Robert E. Kahn,
Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Focuses on Kahn's role in the development of computer networking from 1967 through the early 1980s. Beginning with his work at
Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), Kahn discusses his involvement as the
ARPANET proposal was being written, his decision to become active in its implementation, and his role in the public demonstration of the ARPANET. The interview continues into Kahn's involvement with networking when he moves to IPTO in 1972, where he was responsible for the administrative and technical evolution of the ARPANET, including programs in packet radio, the development of a new network protocol (TCP/IP), and the switch to TCP/IP to connect multiple networks.