The Internet

What is the Internet?

The Internet was created by Vinton G. Cerf. As he describes it, the internet is
more of a design theory of world-wide distributed communications than an
inherently physical or digital thing. The internet is just an idea of how
computers should communicate, and thus, is not owned by a single entity.

Binary
Binary is made up of sets of ones and
zeroes to represent letters and
numbers. All data is made up of
binary at it's core. In an electrical
signal, ones are represented by 'on'
and zeroes by 'off'.

Units of Binary
One digit of binary is called a bit,
four bits are called a nibble, eight
bits are called a byte, 1024 bytes are
called a Kilobyte, and 1024 Kilobytes
are called a Megabyte.
Bit rate
Bit rate is the rate at which binary digits
are sent, not to be confused with
bandwidth, which is the max bit rate on
a network. Bit rate is never higher than
bandwidth. Having set bit rate allows
two of the same binary digit to be next
to each other.
Latency
Latency is the time it takes for a bit to
travel from its source to its destination.
It is usually measured in milliseconds.
Packets
Packets are pieces of a whole set of
data. Whenever a computer requests
data over the internet, a server breaks
up the data into many smaller pieces of
data. These packets are then
distributed along any available routes
to the computer, even if they are not
the most direct.
TCP/IP
All computers connected to the internet
have to follow a set of protocols for
how they package, send, and receive
information. These procols are called
the transmission control protocols and
the internet protocols.
IP Addresses
One example of an internet protocol is
that all devices on a local network
have different IP addresses. An IP
address is an identifier for a device on
a local area network. There are two
types of IP addresses, IPv4 (32-
bit)and IPv6 (128-bit). IPv4 is more
commonly used, but there is a
necessity to start using IPv6
addresses, as there are no more IPv4
addresses availible.
Modems, Routers, and
Switches
To connect to the internet, all you need
is a modem. A Modem is a device that
changes the internet cable your
internet service provider to an
Ethernet cable that can be plugged into
a computer or router. A router is a
device that creates a local are network.
This splits the connections from one to
many, adding support for multiple
devices. Routers can also have WiFi
functionality, but they do not inherently
have it. Switches connect multiple
LANs together into one. These are
often used in large buildings.
Domains and DNS Servers
Domain addresses are just more
readable 'nicknames' for IP addresses
and URLs (A url is just a domain name
with all the information about the
'location' of a website, such as https://,
www. etc.). When your computer tries
to connect to a domain, it sends a
request to a domain name server. This
server will search to see which IP the
domain is registered to. When found, it
will connect the computer to the web
server.
Data Transfer and
Cookies
For a server and computer to transfer
data to each other, they use get and
post requests in HTTP (Hyper Text
Transfer Protocol). HTTP is the
language the internet uses to transfer
information. Get requests are sent from
the computer to a server to request
one of the server's files. This could be
a .html (Hyper Text Markup Language)
file, in the case of a website. Post
requests send data back to the web
server. It is used for things like logging
in and giving info to the website. This
information can be automatically stored
in a browser , and sent back to the
website later. These are called
Cookies. They allow more user-friendly
websites without having to re-enter
data many times.

Data Security
One of the great parts about DNS is
that it is open, but this can also be a
flaw. People can make a DNS server
point to the wrong IP when given a
URL. This can lead a victim to a fake
website. This is called DNS spoofing,
and can be prevented by SSL. SSL
stands for secure socket layer, and it
acts as a blanket of security for data.
SSL authorities can verify that a
domain belongs to a certain website,
and give it a digital SSL certificate.
This is marked with a lock by the URL,
and the website using HTTPS instead
of HTTP.
The IEFT
The IEFT is an organization that
regulates protocols on the internet.
Their goal is to insure the future
development of the internet and create
standards for how the internet should
work.
DHCP
DHCP is a proccess used
by a DHCP server to
assign IP addresses to
devices on a network.
USually the ip of a device
will change every time it is
restarted, but a static IP
can be set.