Joseph Noel Chiappa is a retired American researcher in computer networks, information systems architecture, and software.
Chiappa attended Saltus Grammar School in Bermuda, and Phillips Academy and MIT in the US.[1]
Chiappa started work on MIT's multi-protocol Chaosnet router in 1980.[2] This code routed Chaosnet and IP packets independently. It was later licensed to Proteon and formed the basis of their first multi-protocol router product.[3]
Chiappa designed the original version of Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP).[4] He is acknowledged in several other RFC's, such as RFC-826, RFC-919, RFC-950 and others. He has worked extensively on the Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP). In 1992, Chiappa was also credited for fixing the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" protocol bug as well as other document problems.[5]
Chiappa is listed on the "Birth of the Internet" plaque at the entrance to the Gates Computer Science Building, Stanford.[6] He served as the first Internet Area Director on the Internet Engineering Steering Group, from 1989 to 1992.[7]
From 2012, Chiappa was working on long-term issues in both the Internet Research Task Force and Internet Engineering Task Force and its predecessors; he served as the initial Area Director for Internet Services of the Internet Engineering Steering Group from 1987-1992.
He was also involved in the development of IPv6, objecting to the IPng selection process.[8]
Among many non-technical interests, he is particularly interested in Japanese woodblock prints, and helps maintain online catalogue raisonnés for two major woodblock artists, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Utagawa Hiroshige II[9]
Chiappa lives in Yorktown, Virginia with his family.