The only thing cooler would be the ability to teleport ourselves through it.
There is no beginning.
There is no end.
In the image above, you are looking at one very small part of the Internet.
See that star-burst like image it is extracted from?Go take a look at the full image.
It takes awhile to load.
Then come back, of course.
What makes the Internet work at all, is something called theInternetProtocol (IP).
You may have heard of the termIP Address.
Now you know what the IP stands for, but do you know what it is?
A protocol is a set method for a way of doing things.
Think of an incoming phone call.
Where the heck are you?
“Then the lying, I mean conversation, begins.
That’s a socially accepted phone call protocol.
That’s basically how the Internet works.
You tell your setup to connect to a resource, let’s sayMakeUseOf.com.
Just pulled that out of my hat.
MakeUseOf.com is a human readable form for the IP address 216.92.56.91. Who’s going to remember that?
So we have something called aUniversalResourceLocator (URL) like MakeUseOf.com.
Think of a REALLY big phone book.
You look up your plumber’s name and then you figure out what his phone number is.
Makes sense so far?
Relax, there is no quiz and your Internet Users License won’t be revoked.
What the above image shows is the availableIPversion4(IPv4) space.
MakeUseOf.com is located in the 216 block.
Remember that from the first 3 digits of the IP address?
That block belongs toARIN-AmericanRegistry forInternetNumbers.
Kind of like how the area code 403 belongs to Alberta.
Here’s where it gets a little crazy.
Each piece of data you send out is broken down into packets.
Imagine mailing your friend a book, page by page.
It has more than that, but that’s the really important stuff.
Check it out in the packet header below.
I highlighted the stuff we talked about in green.
Now, check this out.
Each packet doesn’t necessarily go down the same set of wires to its destination.
“What kind of glue are you on, Guy?
“No, it’s true.
It figures that out based on the numbers in your IP address.
The first three numbers identify a large area, and the rest make it more specific.
Yet again, just like a phone number.
This is known as ‘best-effort-delivery’.
This also means that packet A might get there later than packet B, or not at all!
See what I mean about the miracle of a working Internet?
Thus the communication ends.
That’s the simplest, high-level overview I can give on how the Internet works.
It’s all perspective, my friends.
And lots of wires.
