Some of his achievements include developing a number of important Internet RFC documents,[1] helping connect Australia to the world-wide Internet,[2] developing the internet-based research network within Australia, and operating the .au domain registry from 1986 through to the late 1990s.
[4] In the early 1980s he contributed to the operation of the Australian Computer Science network (ACSnet originally developed by Bob Kummerfeld and Piers Dick-Lauder University of Sydney) and in 1989 with Torben Nielsen of the University of Hawaiʻi he completed the connection work that brought the internet to Australia, which enabled AARNet to develop soon after.
[5] He is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne,[6] where for some years he worked in the Computer Science department.
[10] As the architect of the early domain-name eligibility criteria for ".com.au", Elz was largely responsible for Australia's not experiencing a domain name gold rush in the mid-1990s.
[11] Elz was, however, criticised during his tenure, as domain name applications often took many months to be examined, despite the commercialisation of the Internet and customer demands for quick turnaround times.