The Internet

How it Works
A Brief History
• The Internet began way back in 1969 - but it
was called the ARPANET then. It started out as
a research project, and was developed by an
agency called ARPA (Advanced Research
Projects Agency) within the US Defense
Department, in conjunction with a number of
universities and military contractors.
• Its purpose was to explore the possibility of a
communication network that could survive a
nuclear attack. This was achieved by having a
network where data could take multiple paths
from its source to its destination. If part of the
network was destroyed, communications would
still be possible through a different path.
What is the Internet??
• The Internet is a world-wide system of
interconnected computers with more than 2
billion users that are linked for the exchange of
data, news, conversation and commerce.
• The Internet is a global system of interconnected
computer networks that use the standard
Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of
users worldwide. It is a network of networks that
consists of millions of private, public, academic,
business, and government networks of local to global
scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic
and optical networking technologies. The Internet
carries a vast array of information resources and
services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext
documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the
infrastructure to support electronic mail.
Several ways to look at what the
Internet actually is.

• At the highest level, the Internet is the people

that use it - the global community of users.
• At another level, the Internet is a set of
protocols that define the rules of how the
computers will transfer information with one
another.
• At the lowest level, it is the hardware behind
the computer networks - the computers,
modems, phone lines and cables that link
together to form a huge network.
What is the World Wide Web?
• The official definition of the WWW is "wide-area
hypermedia information retrieval initiative
aiming to give universal access to a large
universe of documents."
WWW (World Wide Web)
• The idea for the World Wide Web came from
CERN - (the European Laboratory for Particle
Physics). They needed a way to keep track of
their information and documentation so that it
could be easily accessed and updated.
• Several different ways of viewing World Wide
Web documents were devised
• National Centre for Supercomputing Applications
developed a program called 'Mosaic' in 1993 that
shaped the WWW into what we know it as today.
• Mosaic was the first graphical Web browser -
it allowed text, graphics, sounds and other
multimedia to be viewed in one document. This
revolutionized the Web and brought its potential
to the attention of the rest of the world.
List of Browsers
• Netscape Navigator
• Netscape Communicator
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Application Suite
• Mozilla Firefox
Language of the Internet
• Web Page: A single Web document. Everything
you can see in your browser window at one
time (including what you can see by scrolling)
makes up one Web page.
• Browser, Web Browser: The piece of software
that runs on your computer and allows you to
view Web pages. The most common browsers
are Netscape and Internet Explorer.
• Web Site: A set of Web pages that are logically
connected. They usually have a consistent look
and feel, and are all related to the same theme.
• Home Page: The starting, introductory or
welcome page for a Web site. A person's own
home page is a Web page that describes all
about them.
• Broken Link: A link that references a page that
no longer exists. If you click on a broken link
you will get some kind of "Page not found -
Error 404" message.
• Link, Hot Link, Hyper Link: A part of a Web
page that can be clicked to get somewhere else
- eg This is a link to google.com. Links usually
turn up a different color and/or underlined in
your Web browser.
• Hypertext: Text that can contain links.
• HTML: Stands for HyperText Markup
Language. This is the language that all Web
pages are written in.
• URL: Stands for Uniform Resource Locator.
This is the address of a Web page - for
example
http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/
resources/tutorial/introduction/language.ht
ml is the URL of this Web page.
• Webserver, Web Server: A Webserver is a
computer which holds a number of Web pages,
and 'serves' them out to computers that request
them. There is nothing very special about the
actual computer - it's just an ordinary computer
(though usually a fairly powerful one) running
special software.
• Surf: "Surfing the Web" means casually using
the Web - not really having any direction, just
clicking the links that look interesting to find
yourself in weird and interesting places.
• Cyberspace: A conceptual place that doesn't
actually physically exist - but you can roam
around in it, visit places, meet other people
there, chat to them, go shopping ... Cyberspace
is a real world metaphor for the Internet.
• Post: When you send a message to a
discussion forum, you're posting. This word can
be used as a verb ("I posted a message") or a
noun ("that was a nice post").
• Snail Mail: Traditional mail using paper, pen,
envelope and stamp.
• Local: On your own computer, or on a
computer connected closely with yours (a local
network).
• FAQ: Stands for Frequently Asked Questions.
They originate from online discussion forums
where more experienced users got sick of
answering the same questions over and over
again. So they started writing lists of frequently
asked questions and their answers so newbies
could refer to those. The concept has grown,
and now a FAQ is more general - designed as
an introduction to a certain topic
• ISP: Stands for Internet Service Provider. They
are companies who provide you with Internet
access eg TSTT. Usually you use your
telephone connected to a modem to dial up and
connect your computer to your ISP.
How a URL Works
http:// www.domainname /path/to/ file.html
.com
This indicates This part is called This part This is the actual
it's a web page the 'host name'. It specifies the name of the file, or
address. It is indicates what 'path' to the page you are looking
quite common computer the actual page at. Most pages have
to leave this page resides on. you want to a suffix of .html or
part off. In A .com address is look at. Each .htm. Other suffices
modern usually an '/' separates could be .cgi, .asp,
browsers, the American site the name of .gif, .jpg. Sometimes
http:// will (though not the you'll find that there
automatically always), while a directories (or is no file name at all,
get prefixed to .nz address is a folders). and the url ends with
addresses you New Zealand site. a '/'. This means that
type in. the default page will
be fetched
(commonly
index.html or
home.html).
• The trick is to start stripping things off the URL,
starting from the end.
• http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/04/technology/ps3_ti
ps/index.htm
Protocols
• In computing, a protocol is a convention or
standard that controls or enables the
connection, communication, and data transfer
between two computing endpoints. In its
simplest form, a protocol can be defined as the
rules governing the syntax, semantics, and
synchronization of communication. Protocols
may be implemented by hardware, software, or
a combination of the two. At the lowest level, a
protocol defines the behavior of a hardware
connection.
TCP/IP
• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
• Each computer connected up to the Internet
has software called TCP/IP which is
responsible for receiving, sending and checking
packets. TCP/IP is the 'glue' of the Internet.
• TCP/IP is a suite of protocols
• It is broken into parts:
• TCP
• The protocol guarantees reliable and in-order delivery of
data from sender to receiver
• IP
• Used for communicating data across a packet-switched
internetwork.
Common Protocols of TCP/IP
• HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)
• POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3).
• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
• IP (Internet Protocol).
• DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• This is the protocol used to transfer data over
the World Wide Web. That’s why all Web site
addresses begin with http://
• Whenever you type a URL into your browser
and hit Enter, your computer sends an HTTP
request to the appropriate Web Server, which is
designed to handle HTTP requests, then sends
to you the requested HTML page
Post Office Protocol Version 3 (POP3)
• Local e-mail clients use the Post Office
Protocol version 3 (POP3), an
application-layer Internet standard protocol, to
retrieve e-mail from a remote server over a
TCP/IP connection. Nearly all subscribers to
individual Internet service provider e-mail
accounts access their e-mail with client
software that uses POP3.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)
• This Protocol is used for sending e-mail over
the Internet.
• Your e-mail client (such as Outlook, Eudora)
uses SMTP to send a message to the mail
server, and the mail server uses SMTP to relay
that message to the correct receiving mail
server
• Basically, SMTP is a set of commands that
authenticate and direct the transfer of electronic
mail.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
• To connect two computers over the Internet so
that the user of one computer can transfer files
and perform file commands on the other
computer.
Internet Protocol (IP)
• An IP address (Internet Protocol Address) is
a unique address that devices use in order to
identify and communicate with each other on a
computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol
standard (IP). In simpler terms, a computer
address. Any participating network device —
including routers, computers, time-servers,
printers, Internet fax machines, and some
telephones — can have their own unique
address.
• The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP) is a set of rules used by a
communications device (such as a computer,
router or networking adapter) to allow the
device to request and obtain a unique IP
addresses an Internet address from a server
which has a list of addresses available for
assignment.
What Happens When a Message is sent over
the Internet?
• It is broken up into a whole lot of same-sized
pieces (called packets).
• A header is added to each packet that explains
where it came from, where it should end up and
how it fits in with the rest of the packets.
• Each packet is sent from computer to
computer until it finds its way to its destination.
Each computer along the way decides where
next to send the packet. This could depend on
things like how busy the other computers are
when the packet was received. The packets
may not all take the same route.
• At the destination, the packets are examined.
If there are any packets missing or damaged, a
message is sent asking for those packets to be
resent. This continues until all the packets have
been received intact.
• The packets are reassembled into their original
form.
Some common national group extensions

• com = commercial organization

• edu = educational institutions
• gov = govermental organizations (non milt.)
• mil = military
• org = other organizations
• net = network resources
Question
What do the Following abbreviations stand for?
• HTTP
• ISP
• URL
• SMTP
Explain briefly their use, giving examples.
3mks Each.