An Interview That Ran Long

abstract: From 1986 to the present, I have had the fortune to have wide-ranging conversations with Cliff Lynch on networks and information. Beginning with discussions of networking requirements for libraries, our exchanges quickly encompassed such topics as access control, security, and privacy. Increasingly we focused on aspects of middleware, a layer of services above the network but below applications, including developing a framework for user identifiers and mechanisms for authentication. Cliff's contribution to the conceptualization of "edge" cases, the unique cases that higher education presents, was particularly valuable in these developments. Over the years, thousands of research universities, companies, and governments around the globe have benefited from the infrastructures built, influenced in part by Cliff's unmatched perspectives. In addition, he encouraged discussion of this important set of topics at Coalition for Networked Information meetings, broadening participation and dissemination.