Vint Cerf, the inventor of the TCP/IP protocol and “father of the internet” says that the current discussion around government surveillance sparked by Edward Snowden’s leaks are a “galvanising opportunity” for engineers to help people protect their privacy online.

In response to a question posed by htxt.africa, regarding editor of The Guardian Alan Rushbridger’s recent statements about having to avoid electronic communications as a journalist, Mr Cerf said:

“In a very funny way, in the midst of all this stuff, there is a galvanising opportunity here to align ourselves in the direction of protecting privacy, and I think that’s the job we have ahead of us, personally.

Cerf said that all application engineers should now be looking at 2048bit encryption techniques and multi-factor authentication on behalf of their users.

“If you want people to use your systems and your applications,” he said, “Build in as much security as you can. That’s why I encourage you all to use two factor authentication. We need to help people understand how much risk they are at and how to defend against that.”

Cerf was speaking in his role as an internet evangelist for Google, at Jozihub in Johannesburg this afternoon. He also spoke about the difficulties of network communications in space, and how he worked with NASA on an interplanetary backbone that may yet become an international standard for new spaceships. You can see the full talk here.