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Russ Housley, an alumnus of the Computer Science department at Virginia Tech, became chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force, an international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.
Russ Housley graduated from the Computer Science department at Virginia Tech in 1982 and earned a M.Sc. in Computer Science from George Mason University in 1992. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with the U.S. Air Force, the Vista Laboratory (part of Xerox Corporation), SPYRUS and RSA Laboratories. He is currently the owner and consultant of Vigil Security, LLC. “I used computer protocol developed by others in the US Air Force. I debugged implementations that were written by others. Since then, I have been involved in the development of computer protocols, especially security protocols and infrastructure to support them” says Housley. “Internet security and many other aspects of computer security are definitely growing. You can find many job postings in the cybersecurity area.” .
The Internet Engineering Task Force is dedicated to developing and promoting Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standard bodies; and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. Simply put, the IETF’s mission is to make the Internet work better.
“The IETF is the protocol engineering and development arm of the Internet,” says Housley. “However, no one is "in charge" of the Internet. Many people must cooperate to make it work. Others have described the work in the IETF as "herding cats." There are many different perspectives, and sometimes reaching a consensus is difficult. When a consensus emerges, the outcome is better, clearer, and more strongly supported than the initial position of any participant,” Housley remarks. The Internet Engineering Task Force is also concerned with finding a solution to the most pressing operational and technical problems encountered on the Internet. Russ Housley, after serving the IETF as its Security Area Director for four years before becoming a chairman, used to consider security to be the internet’s weakest spot. With his new responsibilities, he has included more aspirations to his agenda.“.In my new role as IETF Chair, my goals are continuous incremental improvement of the Internet and of the IETF standards development process. As time goes on, I would like to see less unwanted traffic and a more robust infrastructure”, Housley concludes.
The Internet Engineering Task Force is an open, all-volunteer standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements. It is open to any interested individual. For more information, visit www.ietf.org.
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