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#Post#: 313--------------------------------------------------
How the Internet Works
By: Red Date: April 15, 2013, 3:23 pm
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The internet, as you probably know is a series of tubes.
No it isn't, unless you have a fabled water computer.
Stop.
I mean it.
No, actually, it's a good metaphor, kinda.
What really constitutes the internet? If you have a wireless
router at home or if you look at all the computers at school,
they're probably all on the same network. There's a difference,
though, between this network and the internet. Small networks
that are private, and are made up of one simple IP address,
generally are considered what's known as a LAN or Local Area
Network. These are normally only in closed communities and
certain areas. Aside from LANs, you have WANs or Wide Area
Networks. These stretch across geographical terrain and can be
made up of several families of IPs.
What is an IP adress?
Your IP is your computer's address on the network. Routers, or
whatever computer that "hosts" the network, can assign your
computer an IP address manually, or by using a DHCP server, with
which you can probably live without knowing the meaning of the
acronym because, hell, there's already too many to remember.
Anyhow, these manage IP or Internet Protocol addresses for all
computers on the network, and once a computer is assigned an IP,
they can be routed information through the network.
A quick blurb on networking hardware, you have a couple
different things available for you. You have Routers, Switches,
and Hubs, which doesn't include everything, but are the most
important. A router is the interface between networks. You can
think of it as the gatekeeper of a LAN or something. It manages
access to it by asking for passwords to new computers on the
network and the like, and is also in charge of opening internet
ports, but more on that later. If you have a wireless router at
home, it's always recommended that you keep it password
protected, and additionally, have that password encrypted. If
someone gains access to a network, they can be potentially
harmful to your computers and can steal valuable information.
Imagine if your 10 page paper required to graduate high school
was suddenly deleted? Yeah, that would suck. Fortunately, most
computers by default are closed to outside communication and
infiltration.
The next piece of hardware is the Switch, and I'm going to
include the Hub in this one too. One very important thing to
realize about the internet and computers in general is that they
operate within the bounds of something called Bandwidth. In
modern day computers, they operate at gigabits per second of
bandwidth, which is quite a bit (no pun intended). A gigabit is
a billion bits, which is roughly 125 megabytes. That means that
if you had 1 gigabit/second worth of bandwidth between your
ethernet controller or wireless card (the thing in your computer
connecting you to the internet), your processor, RAM, and Hard
Drive, and your hard drive had an equivalent write speed, you
would be able to download a high definition movie (average size,
about 4 gigabytes) in about 30 seconds. Not bad right? Though
this usually isn't the case, for a number of reasons, which I'll
explain the the next paragraph. Finally, the difference between
a Switch and Hub is that while a switch normally allocates the
same amount of bandwidth between all connected computers, a hub
only has one standard of max bandwidth that it has to squeeze
all of the connected computers' connections through. Think of a
pipe filled with water. If you have five small pipes feeding
into one big pipe, it's fine, but if you have five small pipes
trying to go into one small pipe, you mess everything up and it
gets stopped up.
As computer enthusiasts are pushing for more and more bandwidth
and faster download speeds, others may not be on par, and might
still be operating with only 10 to 100 megabits, or mb.
(lowercase b is bit, while uppercase B is byte.) This chain is
only as strong as its weakest link, and even if you have the
best, and most optimized computer in ther world, if you wanted
to download a movie from africa, you'd have a ton of variables
to compete with in order to get your beloved gigabit. Firstly,
let's track where your internet signal goes, shall we?
Your computer, let's say it's called Valhalla, and it's local IP
address is 192.168.1.2, wants to contact your friend on the
other side of the world. Your friend's computer, Niflheim, LAN
IP address is 192.168.1.56 on a different LAN than you, has a
file waiting to be accessed and downloaded. You give your
computer the command to request the said file, and it starts
sending out what's known as a packet. A packet is like a package
of information sent across a network. It has an address that
it's looking for, and it gets sent out among the fray, looking
for the right address left and right. So this said packet starts
traveling along your ethernet cable or wireless connection and
gets to your router. The router's like, "Yo, where are you
goin'," and your packet's like, "Hey, i wanna go to china or
something. Here's my address I'm going to, WAN IP 68.72.79.84,
LAN IP 192.168.1.56." so your router's like, "K, you gotta go
out into the internet, here, lemme load you up into my +10 fire
element packet cannon and shoot you to your ISP (internet
service provider)." So it does that and your packet travels
through phone lines and stuff until it winds up at your ISP's
router where they're like, "K, licence and registration and
stuff." So your packet gives them info like where it's goin, how
much data it is, what data it's carrying, stuff like that. It
goes through this labyrinth of wires and waits a little bit
while your ISP does some work. Your ISP gives your own router a
different global IP then what it is on your LAN. It normally
isn't 196.168.1.XXX but usually something else. Anyhow, your ISP
sends out little test packets to servers all over the world,
where they ask if the computer your packet is looking for is
behind them. Normally, they're like, "Naw, dog, not here." and
then their little packet comes back and tells them the news.
When your packet's destination is found, it goes to your
friend's ISP, then to your friend's router, where it's asked
which computer it wants to go to. Then your packet is routed to
your friend's computer where it's welcomed and stuff and it
explains everything. Then your friend's computer is like, "Kay,
we're gunna send you that file now." and then send packets back
with the file's information, where it's build in your Hard Drive
just like it is on your friend's computer, and then BAM, you
have your friend's file.
Now there's a couple places where bandwidth can be limited here.
First, your computer's ethernet card can be old and only use a
couple megabits of info. Furthermore, wifi normally doesn't
operate very quickly, and ethernet will probably always be the
better choice. Next, your router can be out of date, and that's
not to mention if you have to go through switches and hubs
before you even get close to the router, which can slow it down
further. Once it's out of the router, it has to deal with other
packets on the line, which can slow it down more, then it has to
deal with the ISP's router, another point of congestion. Then
any hardware within the ISP can slow it down, and if it gets any
farther, depending on it's destination, it might have to travel
across seas, which further slows it down, then has to deal with
everything else across seas as well, then everything has to make
the trip back to let your computer know that it made it and
you're connected.
Hard work.
Also, ISPs can throttle your bandwidth as well, and limit it
depending on your internet plan. You pay them for internet, and
the better the plan, normally the better the bandwidth.
There's several innovations that are helping the internet work
much better. Fiber optic technology can operate in binary, and
therefore can be read by computers. Light travels extremely
quickly, and often very reliably, and many ISPs are starting to
offer completely fiber networks that operate at neckbreaking
speeds. Google Fiber, for example, is offering gigabit internet
in the next couple years at about 70 dollars a month. That's
probably more than what you and I pay, but with those speeds,
people will have more opportunities to open up online businesses
and doing so would be significantly more practical.
Hmm, I feel like I'm forgetting something, but that seems to be
about it. If you have any questions, please respond in this
thread, and I'd be more than happy to help you out. Yay!
#Post#: 320--------------------------------------------------
Re: How the Internet Works
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: April 15, 2013, 8:36 pm
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is txting the same as the internet ?
ur like sending things 2 other ppl thru txt but when i try 2
send mesages on my itouch and i dont have wifi then it just dont
send idk y
can u tell me y ? ?
#Post#: 322--------------------------------------------------
Re: How the Internet Works
By: A Sexy Tree Date: April 16, 2013, 10:42 am
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That was the most entertaining thing I've read all week.
#Post#: 324--------------------------------------------------
Re: How the Internet Works
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: April 16, 2013, 12:27 pm
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[quote author=A Sexy Tree link=topic=39.msg322#msg322
date=1366126936]
That was the most entertaining thing I've read all week.
[/quote]
Glad I made you happy but in all seriousness my bother won't
shop arguing with my dad about it
#Post#: 327--------------------------------------------------
Re: How the Internet Works
By: Red Date: April 16, 2013, 2:42 pm
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Texting with iPhones is a little different. If you're using
iMessage to text someone else who doesn't have an iPhone, it
send it through the normal text servers, but if you text someone
who also has an iPhone, the message turns blue and it sends it
through the internet. How messages go through the internet is
basically the exact same thing of how packets do it, I suppose.
Normal texts are first sent to the cell tower, then to the
service's server, where it decodes the information in the text,
like what phone it needs to go to, and then it probably does the
same thing an ISP does and finds what phone the towers connected
to and shoots it there. If the phone isn't found, the message
stays on the service's server until the lost phone reconnects.
#Post#: 331--------------------------------------------------
Re: How the Internet Works
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: April 16, 2013, 5:02 pm
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[quote author=Red link=topic=39.msg327#msg327 date=1366141340]
Texting with iPhones is a little different. If you're using
iMessage to text someone else who doesn't have an iPhone, it
send it through the normal text servers, but if you text someone
who also has an iPhone, the message turns blue and it sends it
through the internet. How messages go through the internet is
basically the exact same thing of how packets do it, I suppose.
Normal texts are first sent to the cell tower, then to the
service's server, where it decodes the information in the text,
like what phone it needs to go to, and then it probably does the
same thing an ISP does and finds what phone the towers connected
to and shoots it there. If the phone isn't found, the message
stays on the service's server until the lost phone reconnects.
[/quote]
Thankie.
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