Lecture 4: The Internet and The World Wide Web

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 The Internet

◦ The Internet is the global system of interconnected

computer networks that use the Internet protocol
suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide.

◦ It is a network of networks that consists of private,

public, academic, business, and government
networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad
array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking
technologies.

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 Internet History
• The Internet started in the 1960s as a way for government
researchers to share information through the ARPANET
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the network
that ultimately evolved into what we now know as the
Internet
• January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the
Internet. A new communications protocol was established
called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol
(TCP/IP)
• Prior to this, the various computer networks did not have a
standard way to communicate with each other.

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 Internet Services
◦ The Internet carries a vast range of information resources
and services, such as the of the World Wide Web
(WWW),
◦ Communication Services - telephony, and
◦ Information Retrieval Services - file sharing
◦ World Wide Web (WWW) - inter-linked hypertext
documents and applications
◦ electronic mail,
◦ Video Conferencing.

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 World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an
information service where documents and other web resources are
shared
The World Wide Web (WWW) is a combination of all resources and
users on the Internet that are using the HyperTextTransfer Protocol
(HTTP).
English scientist Tim Berners Lee invented the World Wide Web in
1989.
He wrote the first web browser computer program in 1990 while
employed at CERN in Switzerland.

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 Web service
 Web resources are identified by Uniform Resource
Locators (URLs), or sometime URI – Universal Resource
Identifier
interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via
the Internet.
To access a web page, we use an application called
Browser
Example of web browsers are Google chrome, Microsoft
edge, Operamini, Firefox etc.

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 Internet Protocols
 The Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol, or set of rules, for
routing and addressing packets of data so that they can travel
across networks and arrive at the correct destination
 Some of Most used protocols are
 TCP/IP
 FTP
 HTTP
 DNS

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TCP/IP -Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol
Standard communication protocols used to interconnect
computers and devices (i.e, networked computers and
digital devices)
Developed by Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn of the DARPA
(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
In 1983 TCP/IP were officially adopted as standards for the
ARPANET, soon to become the ‘public’ Internet

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 FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a network protocol
for transmitting files between computers over
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP) connections.

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 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application layer
protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed,
collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
 How HTTP works. Through the HTTP protocol, resources are
exchanged between client devices and servers over the
internet. Client devices send requests to servers for the
resources needed to load a web page; the servers send
responses back to the client to fulfill the requests.

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 IP Address
In the operation of computer networks
they don’t use names for each
node/computing device, but rather
unique numbers –Internet Protocol
address (IP address)
Every computing device on the
internet has a “unique” IP address

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 DNS - Domain Name
System
DNS, or the Domain Name
System, translates human
readable domain names
(for example,
www.amazon.com) to
machine readable IP
addresses i.e. 192.0. 2.44
For example: 8.8. 8.8 is
the primary DNS server for
Google DNS.
Ip: 172.217.170.110

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 Example of Domain
com. – Public domain and most popular
.net - intended for internet service providers or networks
.org. - to represent not-for-profit organizations
.co.- co TLD is a familiar acronym for company,
corporations, or commercial ventures
.ac. – Academic institution
.us or .tz – Country code
.edu – for education institutions

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 Class Work
Let’s create our own ‘network’
Introduce yourself and shake hands with
your neighbors –others sitting “near”
you (side, front, back, reach across )

Through our network you will

send a message/note card from
‘me@ANT’ to ‘you@BEAR’.

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 E-MAIL
Electronic mail (e-mail) is a
computer-based application for
the exchange of messages
between users.
A worldwide e-mail network
allows people to exchange e-mail
messages very quickly.
E-mail is the electronic
equivalent of a letter, but with
advantages in timeliness and
flexibility

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 E-MAIL
On the Internet, @
(pronounced "at" or "at sign"
or "address sign") is the
symbol in an E-mail address
that separates the name of
the user from the user's
Internet address
Eg. mspetter@udom.org

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 E-Mail Protocol
The common protocols for email delivery are 
i. Post Office Protocol (POP),
ii. Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), and
iii. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).
Each of these protocols has a standard methodology to deal
with the emails and also has defined functions.

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