Recently I have been going through an online course on Internet history where big names like Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers and Harold Keen were mentioned who were working at Bletchley Park during the World War II helping to break the encrypted messages used by the German military. The messages
were valuable - it is estimated that the ability to break the Enigma
cryptography, and read the messages, shortened the war and prevented a
significant number of deaths.
I enjoyed the march through time in our course, however, I couldn’t
help but ask myself, “
What were the women doing while the men were out
inventing the Internet?” I was struck by the absence of women from
course lectures and taped interviews. I asked myself, could it be true
that men did, in fact, invent the Internet?
My curiosity got the best of
me so I googled women and the Internet and came up with a hilarious and
informative article posted by Soraya Chealy on her Huffingtonpost.com
blog titled, “
NYT Just Doesn’t Get It: Men, Women and the Internet”. Her
blog begins by criticizing an article in the New York Times that
states, “MEN invented the Internet.” Thanks to Ms. Chealy’s article, I
was introduced to the Ada Project, which is devoted to sharing
information about “
Pioneering Women in Computing Technology.” Skimming
the entries, I read about the many women who contributed to the
development of the Internet. I will only mention a few here.
 |
| Sister Mary Kenneth Keller |
Reading the bio of
Sister Mary Kenneth Keller who is thought to be the first woman to earn a Ph.D. degree in computer science, I was struck by the
following entry,“As a graduate student, Keller also studied at
Dartmouth, Purdue, and the University of Michigan. At Dartmouth, the
university broke the “
men only” rule and allowed her to work in the
computer center, where she participated in the development of BASIC.”
“Men only” rule in the computer center? Interesting that women were
systematically denied access to computers at major universities.
 |
| Barbara H. Liskov |
Another woman’s bio caught my eye,
Barbara H. Liskov, an MIT
professor who “created building blocks for software programming
languages that were key to personal computers and the Internet.” Dr.
Liskov was the first US woman to be awarded a PhD from a computer
science department (Stanford, 1968) and the second woman to win the
prestigious
Turing Award (2008).
 |
| Ada Lovelace |
Not only this, have you heard of
Ada Lovelace; she was a mathematician and daughter
of Lord Byron. To her credit, she saw beyond the capabilities proposed
by Charles Babbage and his mechanical, steam-powered (computer)
"analytical engine." She envisioned more than simple computational
abilities and was able to imagine the future of computers. Ada Lovelace
was also credited as being the first programmer.
 |
| Judy Novak |
Another woman who deserves mention I think is
Judy Novak. She became a
member of a computer incident response team in the late 1990's, and went
on to write (with some others) the
SANS course on Intrusion Detection,
which is the worldwide standard security course/certification for people
whose job it is to detect network intrusions.
 |
| Radia Perlman |
Lastly, I would like to mention
Radia Perlman, a network engineer who
has been referred to as the “
Mother of the Internet”. Dr. Perlman
earned her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT. She is famous for her
invention of the “spanning-tree protocol” which is fundamental for the
operation of network bridges.
Women's accomplishments are sorely under-appreciated and
underrepresented in discussions of the history of the Internet. The
computer scientists mentioned above represent only a small number of the
dozens of women who contributed to the development of the Internet and
the field of computer science.
Though these people did not get the recognition they deserve, yet there are women who are still silently contributing to the society and technology and will keep doing so... All I can do is silently thank them for their huge contribution to the technology... Don't worry, you won't be forgotten...!!
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when I have secrets
