Pål Spilling (29 October 1934 – 16 January 2018[1]) was a Norwegian Internet pioneer and professor at the University of Oslo and the UNIK Graduate Center at Kjeller in Norway.

In January 1964 he started on a PhD program at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, and finished his degree in summer 1968 in experimental low-energy neutron physics.

Spilling left NDRE in August 1982 to join the former Research Department of the Norwegian Telecommunications Administration (NTA-RD), also at Kjeller.

The NDRE ARPANET node followed Spilling to NTA-RD, and became a dooropener to packet switching and real time international communications for Norwegian research and academic communities.

Faced with a threat to his nation's entire network of computers, he acted quickly and disconnected Norway from the rest of the Internet, which at the time could be done by unplugging a single cable.