Lesson 11 - The Internet

• What is the internet?
• The internet is the world's largest WAN made up millions of smaller networks. more than 2 billion people regularly use the internet as of December 2011. The Internet is rooted in the early 1960s in a project run by ARPA,the agency that would later make ARPANET, the first WAN. when ARPA's mission became focused on national security, their name changed to DARPA, the name would go back in forth for  the next few years, today it is DARPA.
• What is a protocol?
• Protocols are the rules for how computers should communicate inside a network. Protocols control or enable the connection, communication, and transfer of data through a network. the first network protocol was created and used for ARPANET in 1969. in 1980's new networks started to crop up, some of these gave network access to personal computers. in 1983 a new set of protocols was made called TCP/IP, it became the standard that almost all networks use to exchange data.
• What is DNS?
• Known as the Domain Name Service, it looks up a host name and returns an IP address, or vice versa. if we didn't have DNS then there would be no internet communication. Each part of the internet has DNS servers, and each computer is interned, configured to query a certain type or specific DNS server. Home or personal computers are configured to query their ISP's name server or a free DNS name server.
• Explain what an ISP is and what it does?
• Data from the internet ends up traveling through ISPs. ISPs usually connect through Routers that connect networks on the internet.Data Travels from router to router till it reaches its destination. Trace route is a utility you use to show how data is routed through the world wide web.
• What is a PING and Firewall?
• Ping Utilities send test packets over the internet and then determines whether the machine they are sent to receives them or not. Pinging a computer can tell whether your connection to that machine is working.A Firewall is a software (or hardware) based program that protects you from internet threats. some schools and businesses even customize their firewalls with certain protocols so they can determine what is allowed on their network.

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• Read "Connecting to the Internet" (Blog Post - summarize 3 main sections in 3 separate paragraphs)
• The Internet is a large WAN made up of many smaller networks. many networks connecting to each other to create the internet. the smallest networks are the ones in peoples homes, these networks are then connected a larger network run by their internet services provider (ISP). the internet is just a conglomeration of connections, backbones and routers handle data at the highest levels.

• a Internet Service provider helps individuals and companies connect to the internet. signing up to an ISP will give you an email address, storage, and sometimes web hosting. today DSLs and cable internet are the most common types of consumer connections.

• There are many ways to connect your computer to the internet, the most basic way is using a ISP and modem. more complicated ways are like the Broadband Connection, but you'll still have to use ISP. DSL connections use phone lines, since lines carry digital data at a higher frequency, so they do not tie up the phone line, that is why DSL lines can be "always on."