Welcome to the digital generation- how the internet works (breakdown)

What is the internet?

Antony Lee
Aug 28, 2017 · 6 min read

To start, the internet is basically an interconnected network of computers. Some of these computers are web servers which are specialized computers that contain and serve content from our favorite websites, and others are just devices we use everyday, like laptops, tablets, and cell phones. Each web server is like a tall building that’s connected to other buildings through highways and roads. This network is the Internet, and what travels along the network (roads) is data. Just like how physical buildings have a mailing address, each of our web servers have an address called an ip address.

Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) help us connect to the internet. They are like special buildings that allow our client devices to connect to the highways and roads. Think of each of our internet connected devices as a house with a driveway that leads to the ISP’s, once your house is hooked up to the internet, you’re connected.

How does it work (Breakdown)

First of all, your browser is a client application (program allowing you to make requests to different web sites and respond to the data those web sites send back). When you type a URL such as “http://espn.go.com” into your browser, your browser needs to know that this URL (uniform resource locator) actually means the ip address. Therefore, the browser contacts the DNS (domain name service) and looks up the ip address for that url. Then once the ip address is retrieved, your browser attempts to connect to the web server by opening up a socket connection (think of this as you physically calling the tall building) (aka: web server) and seeing if they’re still open. If someone responds, then you know they’re open (you’re connected).

Now that your browser and the server have a open connection with each other, your request to a specific article on the website can be made. Before your request can be sent over the internet, it has to follow a set of rules that describe how the request must be formatted. These rules are known as TCP/IP and the HTTP protocol.

In order to travel along the highways and roads of the internet, every request made by your browser and every response sent by a web server must be chopped up into small data packers. Your original request is like a photo mosaic, once its been chopped up, each tile represents a data packet. Each tile also knows the ip address its supposed to go to and how to reassemble itself once all the packets reach the destination ip address.

Going back to requesting a specific article on ESPN, the request for the article is chopped up into packets and sent along the highway and roads. Along the way, there are routers (and similar devices) that direct the packets to the correct path to the ip address.

Once the packets of data arrive at the web server, it will look for the specific article, (like how you’d look for a file in a cabinet drawer). Once the file is located, the web server will chop up the response into data packets again, and send them back to your browser. Finally, when all the data packets arrive back at your browser, your browser will reassemble all packets into the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and image files representing the article. Once the files are processed, you’ll see the article displayed on screen.

To put this in much simpler/broader terms: the internet is connected through wires. Computers connected directly to the internet are called “Servers,” while the computers you and I use are “clients,” (not connected directly to the internet), we connect through an Internet Service Provider (ISP’s). Routers then shuttle packets of information across the internet, and transmit e-mail, pictures, and web pages.

What to watch out for and best practices:

In many places on the internet, many will ask you for a username or password. Don’t be alarmed, this is simply to differentiate you from other users, and provide a form of identification. This is like meeting another person: your username is like telling the person your name(serves as a way the person identifies you), and the password serves as another way of identifying you if the person knows another person with a similar name. Passwords are like telling the other person what you like, your hobby, etc when they need another way to identify you. Passwords are also a good precaution to make sure that someone can’t spy on your account, because they’ve picked up your username.

As stated before, the internet is connected by a bunch of wires (similar to plumbing). Just like how plumbing provides water, these wires contain the key to your personal info/details. Therefore, maintenance and security are very important. Fraud and theft are very real, harmful issues/things that could easily happen to you. When people mess with your things such as your house/car, etc with intentions of breaking it, you need to quickly identify the issue and develop stronger protection. Similarly, when people mess with your online connections, they could be trying to steal personal information from you (usernames, passwords, credit card, etc). When this happens, you do whatever possible to defend yourself (change passwords, call others for help, etc). Your level of security online slowly declines as you get more into the internet, it’s up to you to regulate your safety.

Here are some tips to help you stay safe online. The first way is to make sure that you create complex/unique passwords that aren’t very basic, also make sure to use different passwords for each site, so that if you run into a cyber threat, the person trying to hack won’t access all of your info. The most effective passwords contain multiple numbers, letters, for example a password such as Mydogeatstacos345 is much more effective than a basic password such as 12345. Secondly, make sure to never give info away to a source that is unknown if it’s credible. For example, one day on Facebook you may get a strange notification saying you’ve won a free iphone, that’ll ask for your private info such as address, credit card, etc to redeem your prize. At first you may be tempted, but don’t give in. Immediately check if it’s credible by doing research on the organization, calling their number, or asking others about their experiences. Most of the time, these types of notifications are scammers trying to get private info to steal money from you. Lastly, install virus protecting software on your computer, and try to use a personal wifi hotspot if you ever use the internet outside of home (certain networks aren’t secure and can also leak information). Using a VPN (virtual private network) also will help you stay secure: it’s basically adding privacy and security to your network.

Lastly, the internet is such an excellent resource to have. Prior to the internet, many basic everyday tasks were a major struggle: people spent hours in a library searching for information that was likely outdated, everyone had to physically write letters, and endure a long wait, you had to actually meet someone to interact with them, and all payments had to be made in person. Now, with the internet, information can be found within seconds, mail can be sent and received within a few minutes, you can interact with many people through social media, and nearly all everyday tasks are do-able online such as paying bills.

Conclusion

Overall, this is how the internet works, and how you can stay safe online. Don’t be intimidated/afraid by the transition over to technology. At first, it may seem very confusing, but once you get into it, you’ll realize that you’ll be up to date with a lot of things more than you were before. Remember, the internet is mainly meant to make things easier. So when it’s time to pay taxes/bills or when you want to write a letter to your long lost aunt Carol, remember that you can always use the internet.

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