Jonathan Bruce Postel ( / p ə ˈ s t ɛ l / ; August 6, 1943 – October 16, 1998) was an American computer scientist who made important contributions to the development of the Internet, especially in creating standards. He is best known for editing the Request for Comment (RFC) document series, working on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and managing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) until his death.

During his lifetime, he was sometimes called the "god of the Internet" because of his wide influence. Postel noted that this title was meant as a compliment but also suggested he should be replaced by a "professional." He responded in a humble and straightforward way: "Of course, there isn’t any 'God of the Internet.' The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together."

Career

Postel attended Van Nuys High School with Steve Crocker and Vint Cerf. He then went to UCLA, where he earned his B.S. in 1966 and his M.S. in 1968 in Engineering. At UCLA, he completed his Ph.D. in computer science in 1974, with Dave Farber as his thesis advisor.

Postel began working at UCLA on December 23, 1969, as a Postgraduate Research Engineer (I). He was involved in early work on the ARPANET. He helped develop the Internet domain system. At his request, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn created a second set of protocols for moving data between networks, now known as the Internet protocol suite. With Cerf and Steve Crocker, Postel worked on implementing most of the ARPANET protocols. Cerf later became one of the main designers of the TCP/IP standard, which functions because of a rule called Postel's Law.

Postel worked with ARPANET until August 24, 1973, when he left to join MITRE Corporation. He helped with the Network Information Center, which was being set up at SRI by Elizabeth Feinler. In March 1977, he joined the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California as a research scientist.

Postel was the RFC Editor from 1969 until his death. He wrote and edited many important RFCs, including RFC 791, RFC 792, and RFC 793, which define the basic protocols of the Internet protocol suite, and RFC 2223, Instructions to RFC Authors. Between 1982 and 1984, Postel co-authored the RFCs that became the foundation of today’s DNS (RFC 819, RFC 881, RFC 882, and RFC 920). In 1995, he co-wrote RFC 1591. In total, he wrote or co-authored more than 20 RFCs.

Postel served on the Internet Architecture Board and its predecessors for many years. He was the Director of the names and number assignment clearinghouse, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), from its start. He was the first member of the Internet Society and served on its Board of Trustees. He was the original and long-time .us Top-Level Domain administrator. He also managed the Los Nettos Network.

All of the above were part-time roles he took on while working as Director of the Computer Networks Division, Division 7, of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California.

On January 28, 1998, Postel, as a test, emailed eight of the twelve operators of the Internet’s regional root name servers on his own authority. He instructed them to change the root zone server from Network Solutions’ A.ROOT-SERVERS.NET (198.41.0.4) to IANA’s DNSROOT.IANA.ORG (198.32.1.98). The operators followed his instructions, splitting control of Internet naming between non-government operators with IANA and the four remaining U.S. Government roots at NASA, DoD, and BRL with NSI. Although Internet use was not interrupted, Postel was warned by U.S. Presidential science advisor Ira Magaziner that he “would never work on the Internet again” and was ordered to stop the test, which he did. Within a week, the U.S. NTIA issued a proposal to improve technical management of Internet names and addresses, including changes to authority over the Internet DNS root zone. This proposal, which was controversial, increased U.S. control over the Internet.

Death

On October 16, 1998, Postel passed away due to problems that happened after heart surgery in Los Angeles. He had just had surgery to fix a heart valve that wasn't working properly.

Legacy

Jon Postel made important technical and personal contributions to the development of the Internet. A memorial tribute to his life and work, titled "I Remember IANA," is part of the Internet's technical writings and is found in RFC 2468. This document was written by Vint Cerf.

The Postel Center at the Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, and the annual Postel Award are named in his honor. In 2012, Postel was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. In 2016, a building owned by the Channel Islands' Domain Registry was named after him.

Another tribute, titled "Working with Jon," is included in RFC 2441. This document was written by Danny Cohen and was delivered at UCLA on October 30, 1998.

One of Postel's most well-known contributions is found in RFC 760, which includes a guideline now called Postel's law. This rule states: "An implementation should be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior." This idea was later reworded in RFC 1122 as: "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send."

The Jonathan B. Postel Service Award is named after him. This award has been given most years since 1999 by the Internet Society to recognize someone who has made outstanding contributions to the data communications community. Postel himself was the first recipient, honored posthumously. The award was created by Vint Cerf while he was chairman of the Internet Society and was announced in "I Remember IANA."