How the Internet Works
The Internet is the global interconnection of computers that form a network through which they communicate using a standardized protocol.
Information on the Internet moves from one computer to another in the form of bits, through mediums such as cables that include ethernet cables, fiber optic cables, and wireless mediums.
The transfer of data through the above physical medium is aided by protocols and the Domain Naming System (DNS).
Because the Internet is a global network of computers each computer connected to the Internet must have a unique address. Internet addresses are in the form of four series of decimal numbers from 0 – 255 e.g. 789.554.321.089. This address is known as an IP address (Internet Protocol address).
When your computer is connected to the Internet and has a unique address, what enables it to ‘talk’ to other computers connected to the Internet are known as protocols. A protocol is a set of rules specifying how computers should communicate with each other over a network.
The Internet uses DNS (Domain Name System) to enable people to use words instead of the long and confusing numbers for Internet addresses. DNS is a distributed database that keeps track of computer’s names and their corresponding IP addresses on the Internet. You can think of DNS as an In internet address book, mapping domain names to IP addresses.
Information transfer on the Internet from one device to another is done in the form of packets which are small amounts of data sent over a network. Each packet includes a source and destination as well as the content (or data) being transferred.
One of the most commonly used services on the Internet is the World Wide Web (WWW). The application protocol that makes the web work is Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is the protocol that web browsers and web servers use to communicate with each other over the Internet.
Learning Objectives:
•How web browsers work e.g. cookies and website tracking, browsing history etc. •How search engines work.
•Understanding the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.
•Tools of mitigation e.g. clearing cookies, ad blockers, firewalls, enabling privacy controls etc.