PERSONAL BACKGROUND
- NAME: Tim Berners-Lee
- BORN: June 8, 1955
- WHERE: London, England
- OCCUPATION: Computer Programmer
While working with CERN, a European nuclear research organization, Berners-Lee created a hypertext prototype system that helped researchers share and update information easily. He later realized that hypertext could be joined with the Internet. Berners-Lee recounts how he put them together: “I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and “ta-da!” the World Wide Web.”
What Did He Do?
As a student at Oxford University, Berners-Lee was banned from using the university computers after he and a friend were caught hacking to gain access to restricted areas. He moved on and built his own computer from spare parts. After college, he hacked a few other things including HTML.
Tim Berners-Lee: A White-Hat Hacker
Famous not for hacking but inventing the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee nevertheless is undeniably a member of the white-hat hacking camp.
Where Is He Now?
Since his creation of the World Wide Web, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT. The W3C describes itself as “an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff and the public work together to develop Web standards.” Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web idea, as well as standards from the W3C, is distributed freely with no patent or royalties due.
