INVENTOR OF INTERNET DEFENDS AL GORE

INVENTOR OF INTERNET DEFENDS AL GORE

LOS ANGELES (Wireless Flash) -- Vice President Al Gore received a lot of flack earlier this year after he claimed he invented the internet -- but the man who REALLY did invent the internet isn't mad. UCLA Computer Science professor Leonard Kleinrock -- who developed the process used today for sending data over the internet -- thinks Gore deserves some credit since he convinced the government to invest in the information infrastructure back when he was a Senator in the 1980s. But one date Gore had nothing to do with is October 29, 1969. That's when Kleinrock sent the very first internet message: the letters "l-o." The message was supposed to spell out "l-o-g" but the computer crashed before Kleinrock could type the "g." Now that the internet is so successful, he says he wishes his historic first message wasn't so ordinary. Kleinrock will be appearing this weekend at CyberNet World Fest, a Los Angeles-based festival dedicated to all things cyber.