Report, edit, etc...Posted by dumbducky on 2007-01-19 at 16:56:22
I had to choose a topic for a school paper, and I chose the internet. I thought some people here would like to find out how. And I'd also like to know if there are any inaccuracies or mistakes. And just so you know, this was the rough draft which is why I switched from youtube to myspace and left it there. The final copy is saved on the school server.
How the Internet works
Everyday, millions of people log on to Youtube.com, the top viewed site in the world. But how many people stop to think how their computer knows what to do when you type in the web address? Not many. The process is very simple. Just about anyone can understand it.
The first thing you must learn about is the IP address. It is a simple set of numbers written as x.x.x.x where x is any number ranging from zero to 255. A sample IP address would be 0.1.2.3. This tells other computers where on the internet another computer is located. For example, YouTube is located at 208.65.153.245. To prove this, open command prompt on your computer. Type in “ping youtube.com”. The ping function sends four attempts to contact a webpage. The webpage will respond if it receives the messages(1). These messages are referred to as “packets”. Packets are just a fancy word for chunks of data.
There’s still more to how the internet works. Those were only the basics. When you log on to MySpace.com, your computer uses four steps to do so. The steps are called layers. The first layer is the application layer. This is the internet browser, or your
e-mail program. The application layer interprets data and puts on your screen. The second layer is the transmission protocol layer. It tells your computer which port to put the data on(1). Then it sends the data to the internet protocol layer. The internet protocol layer is responsible for getting data from one computer to the next. It sticks data in each packet that tells where the data came from and where it goes. The next layer is the hardware layer. It sends the data through a cable line or a modem. The data goes through the internet to the next computer. When the packets reach the computer they are sent to, they go through the same layers in reverse order. So they would go through the hardware order, the IP layer, the TCP layer, and then the application layer. So when you log onto Myspace.com, what really happens is that you send packets of data to MySpace.com, and MySpace.com sends you the data.
But you may be wondering what happens when you send data through the internet. Well, all the internet really is, is a series of routers. These routers use the IP address system. The fourth number in your IP address is your computer. The third number is your local router. The second number is a router above the third. The first is the highest up in the hierarchy. When you send data out, the data goes to the highest up router. If the router number matches the first number of the IP address, the router will send it to the router matching the second number of the IP address that corresponds to the number on the router. If the highest router does not correspond to the first number in the IP address, it will send the packet to the correct router. When data is sent to a different router, it is called a hop. To see the path of routers a packet of data takes, you can use the command prompt. Type in “tracert myspace.com”. This will give you a series of IP addresses. These IP addresses are all the routers your packet goes through to reach MySpace.com.
But you still may be wondering how your computer knows what to do when you type in MySpace.com. After all, it isn’t an IP address. You see, MySpace.com is a domain name. To access it, your request is sent to a domain name system(DNS) computer. These computers contain a list of domain names and the IP addresses that lead to them. Now, not all DNS computers have a list of all the world’s domain names. They only have a portion of them. When you first connect to the internet, you choose a primary DNS server. When you type in a domain name and your primary DNS server doesn’t have it listed, it will forward your data to another DNS server.
And that is how the internet works. So now whenever you log onto MySpace.com, you will know exactly what’s happening.
How the Internet works
Everyday, millions of people log on to Youtube.com, the top viewed site in the world. But how many people stop to think how their computer knows what to do when you type in the web address? Not many. The process is very simple. Just about anyone can understand it.
The first thing you must learn about is the IP address. It is a simple set of numbers written as x.x.x.x where x is any number ranging from zero to 255. A sample IP address would be 0.1.2.3. This tells other computers where on the internet another computer is located. For example, YouTube is located at 208.65.153.245. To prove this, open command prompt on your computer. Type in “ping youtube.com”. The ping function sends four attempts to contact a webpage. The webpage will respond if it receives the messages(1). These messages are referred to as “packets”. Packets are just a fancy word for chunks of data.
There’s still more to how the internet works. Those were only the basics. When you log on to MySpace.com, your computer uses four steps to do so. The steps are called layers. The first layer is the application layer. This is the internet browser, or your
e-mail program. The application layer interprets data and puts on your screen. The second layer is the transmission protocol layer. It tells your computer which port to put the data on(1). Then it sends the data to the internet protocol layer. The internet protocol layer is responsible for getting data from one computer to the next. It sticks data in each packet that tells where the data came from and where it goes. The next layer is the hardware layer. It sends the data through a cable line or a modem. The data goes through the internet to the next computer. When the packets reach the computer they are sent to, they go through the same layers in reverse order. So they would go through the hardware order, the IP layer, the TCP layer, and then the application layer. So when you log onto Myspace.com, what really happens is that you send packets of data to MySpace.com, and MySpace.com sends you the data.
But you may be wondering what happens when you send data through the internet. Well, all the internet really is, is a series of routers. These routers use the IP address system. The fourth number in your IP address is your computer. The third number is your local router. The second number is a router above the third. The first is the highest up in the hierarchy. When you send data out, the data goes to the highest up router. If the router number matches the first number of the IP address, the router will send it to the router matching the second number of the IP address that corresponds to the number on the router. If the highest router does not correspond to the first number in the IP address, it will send the packet to the correct router. When data is sent to a different router, it is called a hop. To see the path of routers a packet of data takes, you can use the command prompt. Type in “tracert myspace.com”. This will give you a series of IP addresses. These IP addresses are all the routers your packet goes through to reach MySpace.com.
But you still may be wondering how your computer knows what to do when you type in MySpace.com. After all, it isn’t an IP address. You see, MySpace.com is a domain name. To access it, your request is sent to a domain name system(DNS) computer. These computers contain a list of domain names and the IP addresses that lead to them. Now, not all DNS computers have a list of all the world’s domain names. They only have a portion of them. When you first connect to the internet, you choose a primary DNS server. When you type in a domain name and your primary DNS server doesn’t have it listed, it will forward your data to another DNS server.
And that is how the internet works. So now whenever you log onto MySpace.com, you will know exactly what’s happening.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Syphon on 2007-01-19 at 17:47:42
I'd leave it like this if it was a speach, but since it's a paper you might want to go a little deeper. (IE, other types of IP addresses than 32bit v4 
)
)Report, edit, etc...Posted by MindArchon on 2007-01-19 at 18:23:17
Sounds good, except for that Youtube isn't the top visited site in the world . Yahoo still is. Youtube is 5th if I remember correctly.
. Yahoo still is. Youtube is 5th if I remember correctly.Report, edit, etc...Posted by dumbducky on 2007-01-19 at 18:41:15
I remember back in March or April that Youtubae took number one. It may have been shuffled since that was written(November-ish), and I couldn't find a statistic.
@Syphon:That was more along the lines of the future of the internet. My teacher stressed being careful not to go off subject, so I played it safe and didn't talk about ipv6. And I did give a presentation based on that paper right there.
@Syphon:That was more along the lines of the future of the internet. My teacher stressed being careful not to go off subject, so I played it safe and didn't talk about ipv6. And I did give a presentation based on that paper right there.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by green_meklar on 2007-01-19 at 19:27:39
QUOTE
Everyday, millions of people log on to Youtube.com, the top viewed site in the world.
Sorry, but YouTube is actually fourth, after Yahoo, MSN, Google and Baidu. See Alexa for details.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Deathawk on 2007-01-19 at 19:33:09
Pretty cool, a lot of stuff I didn't know.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Doodle77(MM) on 2007-01-19 at 19:42:12
Ping attempts to contact a server, not necessarily a webserver, and definitely not a webpage.
also http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791 Read that for a more exact definition, since you got some things wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet might help too
also http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791 Read that for a more exact definition, since you got some things wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet might help too