Pål Spilling

Pål Spilling (29 October 1934 – 16 January 2018 including Pål Spillings own, say that this was in 1975) and worked with Vint Cerf, then junior assistant professor at Stanford University, on the then proposed Transmission Control Protocol conducting the first TCP tests between different implementations. Peter Kirstein writes:

During the next few years Spilling also participated in the development of the Internet Protocol and other early computer network protocols. He was visiting scientist at SRI International at Stanford University in 1979/80, where he worked on the Packet Radio program.

Spilling left NDRE in August 1982 to join the former Research Department of the Norwegian Telecommunications Administration (NTA-RD), also at Kjeller. The NDRE ARPANET node followed Spilling to NTA-RD, and became a dooropener to packet switching and real time international communications for Norwegian research and academic communities. At NTA-RD Spilling also worked on communications security and the combination of Internet technology and fiber-optic transmission networks.

In 1988, ARPANET saw its first widespread infection by self-replicating code: Morris, a worm that could install multiple copies of itself on the same computer, causing infected systems to grind to a halt. As the Morris worm began to spread in the United States, Spilling's American colleagues called to warn him. Faced with a threat to his nation's entire network of computers, he acted quickly and disconnected Norway from the rest of the Internet, which at the time could be done by unplugging a single cable.

In 1993 Spilling became professor at Department of informatics, University of Oslo and UNIK, the University Graduate Center at Kjeller. Pål Spilling was internationally recognised for his role in the development of the Internet. His name is engraved in a bronze plaque roll of honour of Internet pioneers at Stanford University.

Spilling was also a local politician for the Conservative Party in Gjerdrum.