# Jon Postel ![[50 Resources/51 Attachments/51.03 Public/2026-02-03 Jon Postel.jpg|400]] Jonathan Bruce Postel (1943-1998) was an American computer scientist who made foundational contributions to the development of the Internet. Dubbed the "God of the Internet" by The Economist, Postel served as the RFC Editor for over 25 years, acting as the final authority before publishing any [[Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)]] standards. He was a founding member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and co-authored the seminal 1974 paper "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication" with [[Vint Cerf]], which laid out key concepts underpinning the Internet's architecture. Postel founded and ran the [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)]], the organization responsible for coordinating the Internet's unique identifiers including IP addresses and domain names. Working at USC's Information Sciences Institute, he led a small group that created consensus on hundreds of technical proposals to keep the Internet unified and functioning. Postel is remembered for "Postel's Law" (the robustness principle): "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept." He passed away in 1998, and the [[Internet Society (ISOC)]] created the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award in his honor to recognize outstanding contributions to Internet standards. ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Jon Postel]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/book AND [[Jon Postel]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> ## Related - [[Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)]] - [[Internet Society (ISOC)]] - [[Vint Cerf]] - [[ARPANET]] - [[RFC 2119]] - [[Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)]] ## References - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel - https://www.internetsociety.org/grants-and-awards/postel-service-award/ - https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/Jon%20Postel