Internet

Chapter 13
The Internet
Foundations of Computing
Dr. Pradeep Sinha & Priti Sinha
Foundations of Computing : Pradeep K. Sinha & Priti Sinha Foundations of Computing : Pradeep K. Sinha & Priti Sinha
Slide 2/60 Chapter 13: The Internet
Learning Objectives
In this chapter you will learn about:
Definition and history of the Internet
Its basic services
The World Wide Web (WWW)
Internet search engines
Uses of the Internet
How to get connected to the Internet
Other related concepts
Definition and History
The Internet is a network of computers, which links many
different types of computers all over the world
It is a network of networks sharing a common mechanism for
addressing computers, and a common set of communication
protocols
The Internet has its root in the ARPANET system of the
Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of
Defense
ARPANET was the first WAN and had only four sites in 1969
The Internet evolved from basic ideas of ARPANET for
interconnecting computers
(Continued on next slide)
Ref Page. 746
In 1989, the U.S. Government lifted restrictions on the use of
the Internet, and allowed its usage for commercial purposes
as well
It now interconnects more than 30,000 networks, allowing
more than 10 million computers, and more than 50 million
computer users in more than 150 countries around the world
to communicate with each other
Ref Page. 746
Its Basic Services
Electronic Mail
Electronic mail service (e-mail) enables an Internet user to
send a mail to another Internet user in any part of the world
in a near-real-time manner
An e-mail message takes a few seconds to several minutes to
reach its destination
E-mail service has many similarities with postal-mail service
All Internet users have an e-mail address, just as all of us
have a postal address
Each Internet user has a logical mailbox
When sending a mail to another user, a sender specifies the
e-mail address of the receiver
Ref Page. 747
Electronic Mail
E-mail service delivers an already sent mail into its receivers
mailbox
Receiver extracts the mail from his/her mailbox and reads it
at his/her own convenient time
The receiver can save it, delete it, forward it to someone else,
or respond to it by sending another message back
Messages in e-mail service can contain not only text
documents but also image, audio, and video data
Ref Page. 747
Electronic Mail
Advantages
Faster than paper mail
Persons communicating need not be available at the same time
Receiver of an e-mail document can store it in a computer, and
can edit it easily using editing programs
Ref Page. 747
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
FTP service enables an Internet user to move a file from one
computer to another on the Internet
Downloading is the process of moving a file from a remote
computer to ones own computer
Uploading is the process of moving a file from ones own
computer to a remote computer
Transfer takes place in following manner:
User executes the ftp command on his/her local computer,
specifying address of the remote computer
FTP process running on users computer (called FTP client
process) establishes a connection with an FTP process running
on remote computer
Ref Page. 747
System then asks the user to enter his/her login name and
password on the remote computer
After successful login, the user downloads or uploads the
desired file(s) by using get and put commands
User needs access rights for a remote computer to transfer
files to/from it
Anonymous FTP site is a computer allowing a user to log in
with a username of anonymous and a password that is users
e-mail address
Such sites are called publicly accessible sites because any
user on the Internet can access them
Ref Page. 748
Telnet
Telnet service enables an Internet user to log in to another
computer on the Internet from his/her local computer
To start, user types telnet command and address of the
remote computer
Remote computer then authenticates the user by asking
him/her to enter a login name and a password
Anything that the user types on the local computer is sent to
the remote computer for processing
Common uses are:
Using computing power of a remote computer
Using some software on a remote computer
Accessing information from a database or archive on a remote
computer
Logging in to ones own computer from another computer
Ref Page. 748
Usenet News
Usenet service enables a group of Internet users to exchange
their views/ideas/information on some common topic of
interest with all members belonging to the group
Newsgroup is like a large notice board accessible to all
members belonging to the group
Member, who wants to exchange his/her
views/ideas/information with other members, creates a
specially formatted message and submits it to the usenet
software
Software posts the message on the virtual notice board. Any
member belonging to the same newsgroup can read the
posted message
Ref Page. 749
Usenet News
In a moderated newsgroup, only selected members have right
to post
In a non-moderated newsgroup, any member can post a
message on it directly
Idea of a moderated newsgroup is to ensure quality of posted
messages
Concept of netiquette (network etiquette) has evolved, which
deals with rules of framing messages that will not hurt others
Ref Page. 749
The World Wide Web
(WWW)
World Wide Web (WWW or W3) is the most popular and
promising method of organizing and accessing information on
the Internet
Hypertext is a new way of information storage and retrieval
that enables authors to structure information in novel ways
A properly designed hypertext document can help users
locate desired type of information rapidly
Hypertext documents enable this by using a series of links
A link is a special type of item in a hypertext document
connecting the document to another document
Hypertext documents on the Internet are known as Web
Pages
Ref Page. 750
Web page designers create Web Pages by using a special
language called HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
HTML is a subset of a more generalized language called
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)
HTML is now a de-facto industrial standard for creating Web
Pages
The WWW uses client-server model, and an Internet Protocol
called HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP)
Any computer on the Internet using the HTTP protocol is
called a Web Server
Any computer accessing that server is called a Web Client
Ref Page. 750
WWW Browsers
To use a computer as a web client, a user needs to load on it
a special software tool known as WWW browser (browser)
Browsers provide following navigation facilities:
Do not require a user to log in to a server computer
Enable a user to visit a server computers site directly and
access information on it by specifying its URL (Uniform
Resource Locator)
Enable a user to create and maintain a personal hotlist of
favorite URL
Maintain a history of server computers visited by a user in a
surfing session
Enable a user to download information in various formats
Ref Page. 751
Graphical Browsers
(First-Generation Browsers)
Enable users to display a hypertext link on screen in multiple
ways
Browser
On Web
client
User clicks on
a hypertext
link
Browser decodes
URL address of
the link
Browser requests
corresponding object
from the server
having decoded URL
address
Browser inspects
the bytes to
determine the
type of the data
such as HTML
document, or
JPEG image, etc.
Browser uses the
data type
information to
invoke the
appropriate code to
manipulate and
display the object on
the computers
screen
Server fetches the object and
returns to the browser a bag of
bytes that contains the object
request
reply
Server having
the requested
information
Ref Page. 752
Java-Enabled Browsers
(Second-Generation Browsers)
Capabilities
Dynamic content
In addition to data, they can also download Java-based applets for
execution
Applet may provide full animation, play sound, or interact with the
user in real time
Transform the static data display into a new and dynamic viewing
system
Dynamic data types
While downloading an unknown data type object, it can also
download from server computer the Java-based applet for dealing
with the unknown data
Dynamic protocols
Overcomes problem of dealing with new protocols because it can
dynamically download the Java-based applet for dealing with the
new protocol from the server computer
Ref Page. 752
Examples:
Internet Explorer
Google Chrome
Mozilla FireFox
Apple Safari
Ref Page. 755
Brow-
ser
on web
client
User clicks on
a hypertext
link
Browser
decodes URL
address of the
link
Browser
requests
corresponding
object from
the server
having
decoded URL
address
Browser inspects
the bytes to
determine the
type of the
object and
realizes that it is
of unknown type
Browser
requests the
server for
the Java
based applet
to support
the object
Server fetches the
object and returns
to the browser a
bag of bytes that
contains the object
request reply
Server having
the requested
information
request
Server returns
to the browser
the applet to
support the
object
Browser
executes the
applet to
manipulate
and display
the object
on the
computers
screen
reply
Ref Page. 753
Web Services
Early Web-based systems had a typical client-server
configuration (two-tier model)
Two-tier model did not support the high quality requirements
of modern Web-based applications
Designers of Web-based systems first expanded the two-tier
model to a three-tier model, and now more generally to an
n-tier model
In the expanded model, most of the software on a Web server
has been moved to a separate computer called application
server and the resources are also moved to different
computers called resource servers
Middleware software handles communication, data
translation, and process distribution
Distributed objects are objects dispersed across a distributed
system
Ref Page. 755
Web Services
Entire distributed system appears to its users as a collection
of objects
Common mechanism used by such middleware is an Object
Request Broker (ORB)
Examples of middleware for distributed objects include:
Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) from the
Object Management Group (OMG)
Distributed Computing Object Model (DCOM) from Microsoft
Remote Method Invocation (RMI) from Sun Microsystems
A component is a self-contained piece of software that has a
well-defined interface and can be developed, delivered,
installed, and run independently
Web Services (WS) is a result of convergence of the Web and
distributed object technologies
Ref Page. 755
Internet Search
Engines
Internet Search Engines
Internet search engine is an application, which helps users
locate web sites containing useful information and references
To search information:
A user types the description of the information using the user
interface of the search engine
The search engine then searches the requested information on
the WWW and returns the results to the user
Results enable the user to locate the requested information
quickly from the vast ocean of information available on the
Internet
Ref Page. 757
Major Elements of Internet Search Engines
Search Request Interface
Enables users to provide description of desired information to
the search engine
Search engine may allow specifications of simple keywords and
phrases, combination of keywords and phrases using Boolean
operators and exclusion/inclusion operators, and title and URL
limiters
Information Discoverer
Discovers information from the WWW and creates a database
for the search engine
Search engine uses the database to locate useful information
during the search process
Information discoverer accrues this information in two-ways:
In manual method, authors provide information about their
websites
Ref Page. 757
Major Elements of Internet Search Engines
In automatic method, information discoverer collects the
information using programs, such as web crawlers, spiders, robots
Presenter of Search Results
Returns search results, ranking them in an order
Search engines often list search results in accordance to a
relevance score
Relevance scores reflect the number of times a search term
appears in a web page
Some search engines also allow users to control relevance
score by giving different weights
Ref Page. 757
Types of Internet Search Engines
Natural language search engines
Enable users to submit search phrases in natural languages
Subject directories search engines
Present search results in hierarchical subject categories,
instead of listing them in an order
Subject guide search engines
Contain links of many important resources on a topic
Meta-search engines
Do not create their own databases but make use of the
databases of other search engines
Ref Page. 758
Some Popular Internet Search Engines
HotBot (www.hotbot.com)
Provides extensive search options by using query operators and
forms
In addition to the options found on the basic search form, it
has an advanced search form, which provides precise filters
Yahoo (www.yahoo.com)
Supports a query syntax that allows inclusion/exclusion, phrase
matching, wildcard matching, and title and URL limiters
Yahoo provides form-based searching on its search options
page
Lycos (www.lycos.com)
Provides a good option of both basic and advanced search
features
Basic search form has a drop-down menu that allows Boolean
and phrase searching, natural language queries, and basic
adjacency and proximity searches
Ref Page. 758
It has advanced search options, which allow a user to limit
results to sound or picture files, or pages offered as a part of
the Lycos services
Infoseek (www.infoseek.com)
Uses a form-based approach that requires a Java script enabled
browser
It assumes some knowledge of HTML to provide description of
desired information
Google (www.google.com)
Is an interesting search engine having many unique features
Excels in producing extremely relevant results, and instead of
web page summaries, it shows an excerpt of the text that
matches the search query
Ref Page. 759
Prioritizes the results according to how closely the individual
search terms appear, and favors results that have the search
terms near each other
Inference Find (www.infind.com)
Is a meta-search engine that searches six search engines
simultaneously
Merges the results, removes duplicate files, and organizes the
results into sections by concepts and/or by top-level domain
It retrieves maximum number of results each search engine
will allow by searching target search engines in parallel
Ixquick (www.ixquick.com)
Is meta-search engine that uses multiple search engines and
returns only the top-ten search results
Ref Page. 759
It utilizes a star system, whereby the number of stars
indicates the number of sites ranking each result in the top-ten
It offers a variety of search options including Boolean, natural
language search, truncation, case sensitivity, and field search
by sending a query to the search engines that support these
options
Ref Page. 759
On-line communication
Users make extensive use of e-mail service and chat service on
the Internet to communicate with each other
Software sharing
The Internet provides access to a large number of shareware
software, development tools, and utilities
Exchange of views on topics of common interest
The Internet has a number of news groups
Each news group enables a group of users to exchange their
views on some topic of common interest
Posting of information of general interest
Users use the Internet as a large electronic bulletin board, and
post on it information of general interest to bring it to the
attention of interested users around the world
Ref Page. 759
Organization promotion
Most organizations create their own web sites to disseminate
timely information about corporate happenings, product
announcements, recent strategic alliances, press releases, and
other information of potential interest to all concerned
Product promotion and feedback about products
Commercial organizations also use the Internet to promote
their products/services and to gather information about user
satisfaction of existing products, market opportunities of new
products, and ideas for potential new products
Customer support service
Organizations also use the Internet to provide timely customer
support
Ref Page. 760
On-line journals, magazines, encyclopedia, and
dictionary
The Internet now has literally thousands of electronic
subscriptions found both for free and low cost
On-line shopping
Facilitated introduction of a new market concept consisting of
virtual shops
These shops remain open 24 hours all the year round, and are
accessible to purchasers all around the world
Worldwide video conferencing
Allows a group of users located around the globe to talk and
interact with each other, as if they were sitting and discussing
in the same room
Ref Page. 760
Worldwide web casting
Distributes a single audio or video content to many
simultaneous listeners or viewers worldwide
The act of using the Internet for broadcasting of such content
is known as web casting
Ref Page. 761
Getting Connected to
the Internet
Direct/Leased-line Connection
In this method, a user uses a dedicated (leased) phone line to
connect his/her computer to the Internet
Its entire bandwidth becomes available for network traffic
between the Internet and the users computer
The users computer becomes a gateway to the Internet
because its owner can use it to provide Internet connectivity
to other computers
Direct connection means that the connected computer system
forms a domain on the Internet
Most large organizations having their own internal computer
network use this method of Internet connectivity
Ref Page. 762
Clients enter into a yearly contract with the service provider
for payment, and the cost of such a connection depends on a
number of factors, including:
Bandwidth
Number of users
Purpose of use
Direct/Leased-line Connection
Ref Page. 762
Remote Dial-up Connection
In this method, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides
Internet access facility to other registered users by allowing
them to connect their personal computers to its own gateway
computer by using a modem
ISPs gateway computer is called a host or server, and the
users computer is called a client or remote machine
User requires a computer with some basic
telecommunications software, a telephone line, and a modem
ISP assigns an account on the host computer to each
registered user
Ref Page. 762
SLIP/PPP Connection
SLIP/PPP connection is an extension to remote dial-up
connection
SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) or PPP (Point-to-Point
Protocol) enables a client computer to become an actual
domain on the Internet when a user connects it via a modem
to a host computer
User requires a computer with TCP/IP communication
software, a telephone line, a fast modem, and SLIP/PPP
software
Ref Page. 763
Commercial Online Services
In this method, a service organization offers a complete
online environment and access to some or all of the Internets
services by using phone service to connect a clients local call
to the host computer of the service organization
The service organization offers local phone access to most
areas of the country
Client has to register with a commercial online services
organization to use its services
Client only needs to have a computer and a modem
Ref Page. 764
Other Related
Concepts
Intranet
An Intranet is a network that connects the computers and
networks of an organization by using similar hardware and
software, as those on the Internet
With an Intranet, basic services of the Internet become
available to the employees and business partners of the
organization
This allows them to communicate effectively and quickly by
using electronic mail facility, and to share information,
software and other computing resources by using other
facilities
Departments of the organization can upload their information
on the organizations Intranet server
Ref Page. 764
Intranet involves only the computers and networks of an
organization
It confines information on the Intranet only to the employees
and business partners of the organization
This is a great security advantage
Intranet
Ref Page. 764
Proxy Server
If an organization connects all its computers to the Internet
directly, maintaining security becomes difficult
An organization often uses a proxy server, which is a specially
configured computer, which allows other computers of the
organization to interact with the Internet through it
With proxy server, a user accesses the Internet from within
the organization in the following manner:
User specifies the URL of a server on the Internet using the
browser
Users system sends the request to the proxy server, which
then contacts the server on the Internet to obtain the
requested information
Proxy server then sends the information received from the
Internet server to the users computer
Ref Page. 765
Proxy Server
Proxy server has one or more of the following services:
To serve as a firewall
Firewall controls flow of messages to/from an organization from/to
the Internet for providing better security to the organization
Organization can configure its firewall software running on proxy
server for packet filtering to ensure that the firewall permits only
certain packets to flow from inside the organization to outside
world
To log the Internet traffic
Organization can configure its proxy server to log every IP address,
date and time of access, URL, number of bytes downloaded, and so
on
To scan viruses entering through the Internet
Organization can configure its proxy server to scan all incoming
messages for potential virus attacks through the Internet
Ref Page. 766
Proxy Server
To cache recently accessed web pages
Proxy servers can also speed up performance of some Internet
services by caching recently accessed web pages on its local hard
disk
Ref Page. 766
Internet Telephony
Internet telephony refers to use of public Internet for voice
communication
It enables a subscriber of an Internet service to use his/her
computer to make long-distance calls
It makes use of the Internet Protocol (IP)
Parties involved in a typical set-up include
The subscriber (the users)
The Voice Over IP (VOIP) service provider
The users Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Ref Page. 766
Internet Telephony
Internet telephony takes place in the following manner:
User makes a call using his/her computer to the partys
computer/telephone
Call first goes to the users ISP, which is the users gateway to
the Internet
ISP then connects the user to the VOIP service providers
gateway
Once the call is established, the two gateways constantly
communicate and forward voice data packets with least loss
Ref Page. 767
Microbrowser
With proliferation of mobile devices vendors are now
producing Internet-enabled hand-held devices
These devices allow users to access e-mail and web pages on
their mobile devices
Microbrowsers are browsers for Internet-enabled mobile
devices
Most microbrowsers occupy around 64 Kbytes to 8 Mbytes
Ref Page. 767
Microbrowser
Approaches used by microbrowsers to access web data are:
Direct access approach
These microbrowsers use an HTML-based language, such as
compact HTML and XHTML
Compact HTML is a subset of HTML
XHTML is HTML reformulated as an XML application
XHTML lets a small device access just a subset of a web page
WAP gateway approach
These microbrowsers use WAPs Wireless Markup Language (WML)
They use a content-adaptation server, known as WAP gateway
WAP gateway, which acts as a proxy, translates and formats the
web content in WML for the target hand-held device
Ref Page. 767
Approaches Used By Microbrowsers
(b) WAP gateway based approach
Hand-held device with
WML-enabled
microbrowser
Web
server
WML
WAP gateway
The Internet
(a) Direct access approach
Hand-held device with
HTML-enabled
microbrowser
Web
server
HTML
The Internet
Ref Page. 768
Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPV6)
Internet works on IPV4 (Internet Protocol Version 4)
This protocol has been around since 1978
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) realized that IPV4 has
several limitations and the Internet of future will need a new
version of Internet Protocol (IP)
Major limitations in IPV4 are:
IPV4s 32-bit address space is not sufficient to accommodate
enough Internet addresses
Lacks features to support multimedia applications needing real-
time or time-sensitive services
Has no support for security at IP layer
Has limited mobility support
Ref Page. 769
IETF developed and proposed a new version of the Internet
Protocol, which is popularly known as IPV6 (Internet Protocol
Version 6) or Next Generation IP
Key features of IPV6 are:
Uses 128-bit address space
Can support 10
15
(quadrillion) hosts and 10
12
(trillion) networks
Uses flow labeling and priority concepts to support real-time
services
Provides a better communication tool for secure business
transaction over the Internet
Enhanced routing capability includes support for mobile hosts
Ref Page. 769
Besides unicast and multicast, it has provision for anycast
addressing
Permits auto-configuration, which allows IP-enabled devices to
gain full access to the Internet
Uses improved packet header format by dropping the least
used options from IPV4 packet header format
Ref Page. 770
Key Words/Phrases
Internet
Electronic mail
Downloading
Uploading
Anonymous FTP site
Publicly accessible sites
Telnet
Usenet
Newsgroups
Moderated newsgroup
Non-moderated newsgroup
Netiquette
World Wide Web ( WWW)
Hypertext
Standard Generalized Markup
Language (SGML)
Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP)
Web Services
WWW browser
Internet surfing
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
Hotlist
Graphical browser
Java-enabled browser
Internet search engine
Natural language search engines
Subject directories search engines
Subject guide search engines
Meta-search engines
Video conferencing
Web casting
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Remote dial-up connection
Leased-line connection
Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP)
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)
Intranet
Key Words/Phrases
Proxy server
Firewall
Internet telephony
Microbrowser

Internet

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Chapter 13

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