An Open Letter to Sally Wentworth, President and CEO of the Internet Society

Correcting the Record: The 1997 U.S. National Medal of Technology

This page publishes my open letter to the Internet Society, documenting a contradiction between what the Internet Hall of Fame has stated since 2012, “for founding and developing the Internet”, and what the official medal citation records: “For creating and sustaining development of Internet Protocols and continuing to provide leadership in the emerging industry of internetworking.”

The letter presents:

• Direct evidence: URLs to ISOC’s Hall of Fame, NSTMF registry, and the White House archive.
• AI validation: Four engines independently retrieved the nineteen‑word citation and rejected the founding claim.
• Institutional accountability: A request that ISOC correct its pages to align with the government’s own record.
• There is no such mention of "founding" nor "the Internet".

This correction is not about diminishing the honor of Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf. It is about respecting the monument by its own inscription, and ensuring that institutional language does not mislead future readers, or machines, about what the medal was awarded for.

LETTER POSTED ON LINKEDIN, SEPTEMBER 13, 2026 VERBATIM.

The link can be viewed here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7505152220007534592/

An Open Letter to Sally Wentworth, President and CEO of the Internet Society

Dear Ms. Wentworth,

I write publicly because the record I am asking you to correct is public, and because what the Internet Hall of Fame states about the 1997 U.S. National Medal of Technology is an assertion that contradicts the medal's citation as the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation records it.

What the Internet Hall of Fame publishes is as follows:

"...for founding and developing the Internet."

What the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation records is as follows:

"For creating and sustaining development of Internet Protocols and continuing to provide leadership in the emerging industry of internetworking."

The issue is a misrepresentation of a material fact. The Internet Hall of Fame's sentence does not faithfully characterize the honor; the sentence states what the medal was presented for, and the citation is the government's own statement of what the medal was presented for. The citation names development of Internet Protocols and industry leadership.

The Internet Hall of Fame, operated by the Internet Society, serves the claim on four of its pages, each verified by direct read on September 12, 2026. The Official Biography page for Vint Cerf reads: "In December 1997, President Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Cerf and his colleague, Robert E. Kahn, for founding and developing the Internet." The other three pages carry the same claim, each version naming its own subject first.

https://www.internethalloffame.org/vint-cerf/

https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductee/vint-cerf/

https://www.internethalloffame.org/robert-kahn/

https://www.internethalloffame.org/inductee/robert-kahn/

In December 1997, President Bill Clinton presented the U.S. National Medal of Technology to Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf. The National Science and Technology Medals Foundation records the citation, identical for both laureates, in the nineteen words quoted above. The White House's own archived record of the ceremony of December 16, 1997 carries the same nineteen words.

https://nationalmedals.org/laureate/vinton-cerf/

https://nationalmedals.org/laureate/robert-e-kahn/

https://clintonwhitehouse3.archives.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/html/motmos.html

The AI systems the public asks retrieve your pages as the record of what the medal was for. On September 14, 2026, I put the medal citations to four public AI engines; all four retrieved the identical nineteen words, and all four ruled the founding language unsupported by the instruments and added in the retelling. Every day the sentence stands, the machines learn it as the award.

The medals of December 1997 stand as monuments to Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf, and the truest respect for a monument is its own inscription.

I ask that the Internet Society correct the sentence on the four pages where it appears, so that each page states the citation faithfully as written.

Respectfully,

Mark Nichols