Neon-komputadór

The Internet

No discussion of computer networks and communications in the contemporary world would make sense without a discussion of the Internet. Whilst the protocols have already been discussed in depth during this chapter and the applications will be covered in detail in Chapter IV, this section will provide a definition and discuss the administration of the Internet. Providing a strict definition of the Internet is not as easy at it first seems. Conventional wisdom would suggest that "being on the Internet" is, for practical purposes, being able to connect to the World Wide Web or send an email. People who have read this Chapter may think that it has to do with being on a network that uses the TCP/IP suite. Both of these are wrong - and right! - but for different reasons.

As explained in this Chapter, there are other networks suites in existence apart from TCP/IP, including thousands of Bulletin Board Services (BBSs). Some of these even have international coverage, through protocols such as FidoNet, BITNET and, until very recently, France's Minitel. These networks conduct their own email and some have access to Internet services like the World Wide Web. Even within the network itself, what we currently call "The Internet" didn't always use the TCP/IP suite - it used to use a system called Network Control Protocol (NCP). It is quite probable that hidden away in a University engineering or computer science laboratory somewhere there is still a local area area network which uses NCP for experimental purposes. Further, merely using the TCP/IP suite doesn't mean that one is part of the Internet. It is not uncommon for the use of the protocol suite in organizations with local area networks (and even technologically savvy households) that are isolated from other TCP/IP networks.

Perhaps the best way to describe the Internet is to use administrative terms. That is, the Internet is the network of computers that have an Internet Protocol number assigned by a Regional Internet Registry, either the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), Réseaux Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry (LACNIC). These bodies receive allocations of IP numbers from the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) which based in the United States. Being on the Internet then becomes quite different to be able to connect to the Internet.

In terms of administration, the ultimate authority for much of the Internet rests with the United States government, as many of the organizations that "govern" the administration of IP addresses and domain names are located there and are incorporated under its laws. Chief among these is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority which, until recently, was responsible for maintaining the totality of Internet hostnames and their IP numbers - in fact, for much of the history of the Internet this was maintained by one person. Obviously at a certain point the task became a little bit difficult for any one individual, no matter how committed to maintain. Today IANA is responsible for the allocation of IP numbers to Regional Internet Registries and the maintenance of a small registry of numbers and domains. Most of the domain name allocation duties have gone to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which has established a competitive framework for the distribution of some domain names (e.g., the prestigious *.com names).

On the technical side, the key organization is the Internet Society. With an open and global membership, the Internet oversees the activities of the Internet Architecture Board, which in turn stimulates work of the Request for Comments Editor, the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Research Task Force who, through a process of open membership, working groups and rigorous peer review establish the technical standards and protocols that make up the Internet.

The Domain Name System

Most people would be familiar with the concept of an Internet address, either as a webpage or as an email address. For example, the webpage http://www.mfac.gov.tp or the email addresses [email protected]. But how does this all come about?

One needs to work backwards on this a little bit. Firstly, the trailing suffix '.tp' is determined by ICANN, which in turn simply takes the two letter country code abbreviation from the official English name given by a nation state to the United Nations and the International Standards Organization. Recently, East Timor changed its English name to "Timor Leste" (which doesn't mean anything in English); however whether this will affect the ".tp" suffix is less than clear. The debate serves no purpose in this discussion anyway.

Anyway, so there's a suffix .tp, which is a country-code top level domain. There's also an enormous number of "generic" top level domains as well, such as *.gov. *.mil, *.edu, *.com, *.net and so forth. You may note that many United States authorities use the generic top level domains rather than those relating to their country code. So, if you want to go to the US government's chief website you go to www.state.gov, rather than www.state.gov.us. Whether you think this is symbolic of the desire the United States government to control the entire world is entirely your own opinion.

The point being is that top level domains are provided a number of IP addresses. Within those IP addresses individual hosts may be allocated addresses as well as a subset of the domain name. So for example, there is a whole range of potential addresses under the *.tp suffix, including of course, a range of *.edu.tp, *.gov.tp, *.mil.tp, *.com.tp and so forth. All that has to be done is that the names have to be registered with the appropriate authority (which is ConnectIE in this case) and an IP number allocated. In the example of www.mfac.gov.tp, our IP number is 194.106.128.49.

And that is a very basic explanation of a topic that can and does fill endless books and technical reports.