<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>Among the four 'founding fathers', Cerf and Kahn are more famous. Cerf is the most famous figure, and most widely called 'the father of internet'. Cerf and Kahn were recognized by Turing prize, national medal of technology, medal of freedom, and etc. I am not denying the great contribution from Kleinrock and Roberts. I am just pointing out their contribution is less recognized throughout the world. </p>
<p>Kleinrock didn't invent the concept of packet switching. Paul Barren and Donald Davies might have had this idea before him. Kleinrock published the first article of packet swithing though. If you call Kleinrock a founding father of the internet, Paul Barren and Donald Davies certainly deserve this title as well. By the way, these two people have no connection to MIT.</p>
<p>Stanford's contributions to internet are certainly richer than MIT. Just list what I know:
Internet TCP/IP protocol, stanford graduate and former prof Cerf
First internet website in the world (SLAC)
YAHOO (Stanford ph.d students Filo and Yang)
GOOGLE search engine (Stanford ph.d students Page and Brin)
netscape (Stanford prof Jim Clark)
Alta Vista search engine (Stanford ph.d Paul Flaherty)
multiprotocal internet router (Stanford engineer Bill Yeager)
DSL broadband internet connection (Stanford Ph.d. and prof John Cioffi)
Claiming MIT made more contributions than Stanford is laughable.</p>
<p>To answer your question about search engine why it is all the way Stanford, I don't know how many people have ever heard of those search engines you mentioned with 'ties' to MIT. There might be a plenty more such and such search engines existing in the past. All these products got crushed by Alta Vista and GOOGLE. Both Alta Vista and GOOGLE were invented by Stanford graduates. So it is all the way Stanford.</p>