The Rudimentary Basics of Internet

It’s easy to sit in front of a computer and point and click, sending and receiving information in less time than a blink of an eye. Most of us take for granted all that happens to transfer that information. Ethan Zuckerman & Andrew McLaughlin have published any easy to read and understand explanation called Introduction to Internet Architecture and Institutions, which can be found here - http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldemocracy/internetarchitecture.html.
They use easy to understand examples while still providing just enough technical information without overwhelming the reader. This is a great site for someone just wanting to know the basics. I know from experience that there is a lot, in fact books and books, of technical information on this subject, and a person without a degree could easily get lost in it all.

The most important thing to know is that the Internet around the world is run using IP, which stands for Internet Protocol. IP was invented in 1974 by Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn and has not changed substantially since then. A simplified explanation of IP is that it breaks down information into packets and sends it across media to a predetermined destination. When it arrives there the information is rebuilt. IP has been adopted and used around the world and it can be used across any media, including fiber optic, cable, radio waves and as Zuckerman and McLaughlin related even on carrier pigeons. In order for the Internet to work all the networks need to be able to talk and communicate to each other. This is done using IP and because the Internet is a global network of voluntary and interconnected networks, no one can force a new standard to be used.

IP uses a number called an IP address to get the information to destinations. We would never be able to remember all those numbers for all the places we visit on the internet, and numbers make it hard for humans to understand, so the Internet uses an addressing system which consists of two types of identifiers: the IP addresses and DNS. DNS stands for the domain name
system. DNS takes the address number and converts and stores it as a recognizable name such a Google. Each of these identifiers is unique.

ICANN, which is short for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the overall coordinator of the Internet's systems of unique identifiers, including domain names, IP address, and protocol port and parameter numbers, along with the DNS root name server system. ICANN is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. There are also other organizations such as IETF and W3C that help define and to make the Internet open, easy and accessible to everyone.

The Internet is not so free and easy in all places around the world though. Developing countries have more challenges to face getting on the internet than countries such as the United States. Because they don’t have the numerous lines, connections and service providers they frequently have to re-route their traffic through satellites and other countries. This makes the service slow and very costly. Also because their current service providers may be businesses that could be hurt by competition, this can stand in the way of growth.

According to Zuckerman and McLaughlin “Achieving cooperation among competitors (in developing countries) is a profound challenge. In the United States, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have their roots in the cooperative academic networks that came together to form the Internet; in other words, the cooperative technical operations and the techies that ran them were later joined by business managers who fought for advantage in the competitive
marketplace. In the US, then, it has proven relatively easy for rival ISPs to remain cooperative at the level of network operations. In countries that are new to the Internet,however, the business-side competitive imperatives have come first, giving little support to the necessary culture of technical cooperation among peers.”