Internet Society Event
Tim Berners-Lee was the first key speaker. I raised my hand to ask a question. I had asked the exact same question to Vint Serf who I had spotted half an hour before the event began. Vint said he was George Washington, Tim might be the Thomas Jefferson, and then went on to offer small tidbits about some of the other Founding Fathers. Vint was in a jolly mood.
I asked my question and Tim's mood went foul. What was the question?
"I think of the Internet as literally the new country. This is the Internet Century. America is Europe. The Internet is America. My question is which of you - Tim, Vint - is Thomas Jefferson?"
The Internet is not a country, Tim said. If you do something fraudulent, you end up in a jail, a real jail, he said.
That cracked me up. I laughed. He knows not who he talks to, I thought.
