The Internet, how does it Really work?

Hi, ok, i've searched the forums and thought it was time to re address this question..do we actually know how the internet actually works?
I am not asking how the programming works,i am sure that there are plenty of HTML and XHTML experts on here (basic prog. but then obviously we have the interactive side ), i am on about how , as a whole , we are all able to connect to different continents and have the ability to run millions of 'data streams' running at the same time.
I was told how it works ie, trans continental connections, but i was wondering if anyone ' without knowing the answer' thinks/ knows how the connections can travel all around the world, with a click of a button?
What enables me to connect to this site, or to a Chinese site at the drop of a hat? ( to be truthfull, even faster than that)
Please realize this, i have been told how it works, and i don't really understand it, but this question is asked to those that don't really know.
If you don't know, then post your theories on here, AND for those of you that do know, please remember that you didn't know either until you were told.

Check ouit this link... Might explain a few things for ya..

Each site has a server behind it located whereever someone (maybe the DNS) places it. ATS could be hosted in Malaysia for all we know (I dont). The DNS of your internet is like the President of everything you're allowed to do on the internet as far as web domains. When you click on a page your DNS translates the name to an IP and sends you to the IP, the IP then records your IP into a server giving the page a "hit". The browser recieves the info from the page in HTML and what not a nd translates that to into what you see on the page

reply to post by crimsonred
It's funny you put it the way you do. I spent last semester in a Networking technology class, among other things, learning how it all works. Why I note it's funny is our instructor for that class repeatedly said the same thing and I couldn't disagree. The more one learns about the details of how this works in a real sense, the more mysterious it becomes that the system works at all. He certainly had a point with that, at the very least

All very sensible answers, but i will now pose the question.... how does the internet from say ,the UK get connected to the U.S. , or to Spain, or Australia?

reply to post by crimsonred


Still the same thing I said with ISPs and DNS. The internet is the same all over the world just in different languages

reply to post by crimsonred


Underwater cables.

As old as the 1800's used for transatlantic telegraph. (not the same ones obviously)

Originally posted by mr10k
reply to post by crimsonred

 

Still the same thing I said with ISPs and DNS. The internet is the same all over the world just in different languages

Thats true, but , how do the DNS manage to communicate with each other? I'm not on about programming, i'm on about the physical/ethernet ability for a DNS from the UK to be able to connect to an overseas DNS?

reply to post by crimsonred




Clearly the interwebs is a series of tubes -

No 'googling ' allowed
'futrama 'sucky up tubes aside....hehe

its magic
gotta be because i have no clue
so magic to me lol

reply to post by quango


Well done, thats the correct answer.though i can't really understand how a hairs width of optic fibre is able to communicate millions of connections at the same time. How advanced are we now, to be able to use a 3 inch cable (size of cable, armouring, plus telephone etc,,) to communicate trans continently with? The data wire that enables us (re; UK to US ) is the same width as a human hair, yet it enables millions of mbytes of info to be transferred both ways per second. It was only a hundred years ago we hadn't really grasped the concept of electricity and utilisied it to its potential...

Routers, son. It's all about the routers.

Originally posted by wasco2
Routers, son. It's all about the routers.

Them there lads might call you 'The Cisco Kid' (Cisco TM and copyright) (but down here in the boondocks, you'se jus' anothe netwoiker.

Massive Transcontinental Internet Outage as Three Undersea Cables Severed - Again. - 3,101 Views, 2 Comments, Last updated 12/20/2008
Summary: If you are having trouble with Internet connections between Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), India, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Maldives, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Taiwan, Yemen, or Zambia, you're not alone. Three undersea cables were cut this morning, leading to a global disruption of Internet connectivity. And this is the second time this year this has happened.
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reply to post by crimsonred


CISCO WILL RULE THE WORLD!!!

THE INTERNET:

Well, we connect to the "internet," which is sometimes referred to as "the cloud." You login to your DSL or Cable ISP, which gives you an IP address on their Class C (usually) network. You are then allowed to access the internet due to privileges and permissions assigned to your connection (network,) then their connection to the "cloud" allows you and other users to navigate the World Wide Web (a collection of web pages,) located on servers (computers designated to serve web-pages.) and forms the what we call the "internet."

There are terms like "domains" which are names which point to IP addresses via Domain Name Service or Server; and these special servers handle translation of IP addresses to domain names and back again. Inside this jumble of domains, there are TOP level domains which are .com, .net, .org, and so on, then SECOND level domains as google.com, google.net, google.org and so on. Each TOP level domain DNS servers handle all traffic for their respective domains; and .com's handle DNS for all .com domains and .net DNS servers handle all traffic for all the .net domains and so on. Every country has their own top-level domain say .us for united states and .uk for the united kingdom, and .ru for russia and so on. Anyone can buy domains on the .com top level domain but some countries limit purchase for their own country specific domains for residents living in their country, which helps keep track of whose where and limit setting up a domain outside a country in another country to use for internet sales or avoiding paying fees or taxes. You can see where this might head.

All of the DNS servers share or propagate their records, often in a matter of minutes, but usually within 24 to 48 hours. Some are real-time and are instantly available. This is why there is a period of time before your web site or domain is "live." and available to be viewed on the internet. There is a DNS server called an SOA which is Start Of Authority and is the main DNS server and transfers or shares their DNS records with other "subordinate" DNS servers in a domain. The more the better in this case of DNS. Usually a typical domain has 2 or more DNS servers to handle Domain Name to IP address translation of requests, but if one crashes or goes down, you can see why having 2 or more is a good idea. Computers don't care about domain names, they deal with numbers (IP addresses) but people like names, so that's why we use those DNS servers. It's like a person listed in a phone book, with their number or address, in order for people to be able to associate a domain name to a computer's IP address.

Usually your ISP hands-down all the configuration for your connection by DHCP, which is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and this is why your IP address changes when its lease runs out, usually 24 hours or longer, and keeps the IP address you use to surf the internet from being tied-up when you turn your computer off so others can use it. It conserves those IP addresses which are limited in number depending on whether your ISP is a Class A B C or D network. An IP address has 4 octets, which are 4 sets of three numbers; as 178.178.178.100 (made-up IP Address,) each set of 3 numbers is an octet, the first octet is Class A, millions of IP addresses, the second octet is Class B (hundreds of thousands of IP addresses, and class C in the third octet, which is what most ISP's are. Each octet goes from 0 to 255 = 256. Now you can see where the 255 and 256 come in. It's totally binary, but IP v6 uses hexadecimal which is 0 to 9 numerical and A-F (alpha) which is 16 (hexadecimal.) Binary is 8 bits and hexademimal is 16.

There is way more to this but this should make a few light bulbs go off in some heads. Feel free to correct or revise this as needed. I wrote it very fast and is meant to be a rough overview of how the internet works, not a scientific paper.

Oh, I forgot to mention the protocols:

HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP: these are communication protocols which tell the browser and computer how to connect to a server. HTTP is the most common and is simply hyper text transfer protocol, followed by the domain name, which through DNS is translated to an IP address. HTTPS is most important, because it is SECURE, just add the word SECURE to the end of the HTTP and you got it. What makes this special is that all traffic flowing from one computer to another computer is encrypted and secure, (indicated by a lock icon on your browser.) This is how most online sales and banking is done. If it's not HTTPS, any password or email you send and receive is sent over the internet in CLEAR TEXT, and can be read by ANYONE. Yes, that's right, if you don't use HTTPS, any person can potentially trap and read your traffic. FTP is file transfer protocol, which is how files are sent over the internet. Like uploading a webpage to a server, FTP is the most common but there are other protocols you can use, but FTP has and is the most easily used, but it's not secure unless you use a special type of FTP secured protocol.

Conceivably, anyone that has the specialized programs which can read clear text could pick-out usernames and passwords, say for any user on ATS, that logs on, but most do not know how and where to use this applications, and for the sake of knowledge, I won't be mentioning this, but any network administrator will and do know exactly what I am referring to. Most network admins are trained to hack their own networks to find and plug security holes, so they know how to be a cop and robber at the same time, so be smart, and don't download some crazy application thinking you're going to be like Anonymous, who knows, you might just break a bunch of laws and find yourself being fined thousands of dollars and in jail if you go out on a limb and do something stupid.

Enjoy!

Originally posted by trekwebmaster
THE INTERNET:

Well, we connect to the "internet," which is sometimes referred to as "the cloud." You login to your DSL or Cable ISP, which gives you an IP address on their Class C (usually) network. You are then allowed to access the internet due to privileges and permissions assigned to your connection (network,) then their connection to the "cloud" allows you and other users to navigate the World Wide Web (a collection of web pages,) located on servers (computers designated to serve web-pages.) and forms the what we call the "internet."

There are terms like "domains" which are names which point to IP addresses via Domain Name Service or Server; and these special servers handle translation of IP addresses to domain names and back again. Inside this jumble of domains, there are TOP level domains which are .com, .net, .org, and so on, then SECOND level domains as google.com, google.net, google.org and so on. Each TOP level domain DNS servers handle all traffic for their respective domains; and .com's handle DNS for all .com domains and .net DNS servers handle all traffic for all the .net domains and so on. Every country has their own top-level domain say .us for united states and .uk for the united kingdom, and .ru for russia and so on. Anyone can buy domains on the .com top level domain but some countries limit purchase for their own country specific domains for residents living in their country, which helps keep track of whose where and limit setting up a domain outside a country in another country to use for internet sales or avoiding paying fees or taxes. You can see where this might head.

All of the DNS servers share or propagate their records, often in a matter of minutes, but usually within 24 to 48 hours. Some are real-time and are instantly available. This is why there is a period of time before your web site or domain is "live." and available to be viewed on the internet. There is a DNS server called an SOA which is Start Of Authority and is the main DNS server and transfers or shares their DNS records with other "subordinate" DNS servers in a domain. The more the better in this case of DNS. Usually a typical domain has 2 or more DNS servers to handle Domain Name to IP address translation of requests, but if one crashes or goes down, you can see why having 2 or more is a good idea. Computers don't care about domain names, they deal with numbers (IP addresses) but people like names, so that's why we use those DNS servers. It's like a person listed in a phone book, with their number or address, in order for people to be able to associate a domain name to a computer's IP address.

Usually your ISP hands-down all the configuration for your connection by DHCP, which is Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and this is why your IP address changes when its lease runs out, usually 24 hours or longer, and keeps the IP address you use to surf the internet from being tied-up when you turn your computer off so others can use it. It conserves those IP addresses which are limited in number depending on whether your ISP is a Class A B C or D network. An IP address has 4 octets, which are 4 sets of three numbers; as 178.178.178.100 (made-up IP Address,) each set of 3 numbers is an octet, the first octet is Class A, millions of IP addresses, the second octet is Class B (hundreds of thousands of IP addresses, and class C in the third octet, which is what most ISP's are. Each octet goes from 0 to 255 = 256. Now you can see where the 255 and 256 come in. It's totally binary, but IP v6 uses hexadecimal which is 0 to 9 numerical and A-F (alpha) which is 16 (hexadecimal.) Binary is 8 bits and hexademimal is 16.

There is way more to this but this should make a few light bulbs go off in some heads. Feel free to correct or revise this as needed. I wrote it very fast and is meant to be a rough overview of how the internet works, not a scientific paper.

Oh, I forgot to mention the protocols:

HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP: these are communication protocols which tell the browser and computer how to connect to a server. HTTP is the most common and is simply hyper text transfer protocol, followed by the domain name, which through DNS is translated to an IP address. HTTPS is most important, because it is SECURE, just add the word SECURE to the end of the HTTP and you got it. What makes this special is that all traffic flowing from one computer to another computer is encrypted and secure, (indicated by a lock icon on your browser.) This is how most online sales and banking is done. If it's not HTTPS, any password or email you send and receive is sent over the internet in CLEAR TEXT, and can be read by ANYONE. Yes, that's right, if you don't use HTTPS, any person can potentially trap and read your traffic. FTP is file transfer protocol, which is how files are sent over the internet. Like uploading a webpage to a server, FTP is the most common but there are other protocols you can use, but FTP has and is the most easily used, but it's not secure unless you use a special type of FTP secured protocol.

Conceivably, anyone that has the specialized programs which can read clear text could pick-out usernames and passwords, say for any user on ATS, that logs on, but most do not know how and where to use this applications, and for the sake of knowledge, I won't be mentioning this, but any network administrator will and do know exactly what I am referring to. Most network admins are trained to hack their own networks to find and plug security holes, so they know how to be a cop and robber at the same time, so be smart, and don't download some crazy application thinking you're going to be like Anonymous, who knows, you might just break a bunch of laws and find yourself being fined thousands of dollars and in jail if you go out on a limb and do something stupid.

Enjoy!

edit on 27-7-2011 by trekwebmaster because: (no reason given)

That was good reading, and very informative, i thank you for the time and effort you put into the post. Unfortunately you didnt read the whole thread, this isn't a 'question' as to how the prog, works, this was about newbies trying to see how, the internet actually manages to cross the seas and continents.
I found out that it is basically a tiny little optic fibre that enables all internet (and intranet depending on size of VPN)(thats right Cisco Kid, i know my jargon)) traffic to flow both ways,

Now, the really Big question is.....how much data, can we eventually cram down a 0.05mm fibre optic tube? I'm no good at mathematics, so can anyone do the maths?

War of the Servers (Full)

www.youtube.com...

A very educational film,,a story by those who were there at the beginning


warning hardcore geeks and script kiddies only need watch

Half life ,,,good game loved the ,,crossbow,,,

The routers do most of the work, by trading their routing tables (the path to the next router, and the next etc) to each other. Like domino's falling, the new information is propagated across the vast router segments on each side of the oceans etc. As far as the fiber optics, its not just one strand, its thousands of them draped across the ocean floors to facilitate traffic.