CYBERPUNK: The Meaning of the Word "Invent"

Al Gore invented the Internet, heh heh heh heh. I bet the Democratic presidential candidate wishes he could live that one down. It's everywhere! Gore is the "self-described inventor of the Internet," trumpets ZDNet's irascible computer columnist, Jesse Berst in "Don't Vote -- Until You Read This.". "Al Gore says he invented the Internet," prods ReasonOnline.

Don't these places have fact-checkers? We all know Gore didn't invent the Internet. But he never said he invented the Internet either. What he said, when asked in a March 1999 CNN interview to list his accomplishments, was this: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." So there you go.

In these last few days before the election, whether you think "took the initiative in creating" equals "invented" probably depends on whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. Either way, this false falsehood still reflects badly on his character. The fallout from the comment should have made him smarter. But it didn't.

The whole myth of Al's Internet sprang from an article, "No Credit Where Is Due," that appeared in Wired News shortly after the CNN interview. The author, Declan McCullagh, an acquaintance of mine, covers federal politics and information technology. His article about the Gore quote pointed out that the VP wasn't as technically inclined as he fancied himself. McCullagh, for instance, takes great pleasure in reporting how Gore once mispronounced "routers" (a piece of networking equipment) as "root-ers."

Rereading it now, it's obvious the story is something newsgroup aficionados like to call a "troll." A troll is a post deliberately written to raise the ire of its target audience. McCullagh's piece inspired laughter at Gore's expense across the whole tech sector.

Interestingly enough, the word "invent" actually never appeared anywhere in the article. As pointed out by University of California information-studies assistant professor Phil Agre in his Red Rock Eater mailing list Red Rock Eater mailing list, the first appearance of the word "invent" in the context of Gore and the Internet appeared in another Wired News story on Gore, about two weeks after the CNN interview. "Just as Republicans were beginning to eye the 2000 presidential race in earnest," McCullagh wrote in this piece, "the vice president offered up a whopper of a tall tale in which he claimed to have invented the Internet." A rumor was born, and it's haunted Gore to this day.

In recent months, a lot of the Internet's heavy hitters have been becoming to the veep's defense. Agre's a highly respected commentator on the industry, and his post dissects McCullagh's articles with brutal precision, calling the first one "overwhelmingly hostile in its tone." What Gore meant, Agre writes, "was that he did the political work and articulated the public vision that made the Internet possible. No reasonable person could conclude that Gore was claiming to have invented the Internet in any technical sense." Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn, two info-tech pioneers who helped design many of the Internet's protocols, also jumped into the fray. In an e-mail sent to numerous lists and to McCullagh himself, they say Gore deserved significant credit for understanding "the value of high-speed computing and communication and for his long-term and consistent articulation of the potential value of the Internet to American citizens." Dave Farber, the Net-savvy chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission, posted a pro-Gore message on his Interesting People mailing list.

These are endorsements of the highest order. But, as techies are wont to do, they miss the forest for the trees. Back in 1999, it may have been Gore's technical knowledge that was being questioned. But what makes McCullagh's article so relevant now is that its author spotted a character weakness before anyone else did (in the media, anyway) -- Gore's proclivity for tall tales.