The largest network of information ever to exist, enabling us to communicate in various forms around the world. All in the palms of our hand. Or at our feet. Or in whatever device you use.
The world is now at a point where most skills are within reach as long as we have the self discipline to pursue it.
But how does it work? I'll tell you.
The internet is made up of an incredibly large number of independently operated networks. As such, ISP's i.e., Internet Service Providers, work to ensure end to end connectivity which gives the user access to things all over the world. The internet works by sending binary information. We call these information packages bits. These bits come in either two states which is represented by binary code. A little something you should note: 1) 8 bits makes 1 byte 2) 1024 bytes makes 1 kilobyte 3) 1024 kilobytes makes 1 megabyte 4) 1024 megabytes makes 1 gigabyte
So everything on the internet is represented by these bits whether it's a tedious lecture or this blog post!
When you send a letter via post you always write what on it? The address of the recipient! This applies to the internet as well where the internet is our post office and the wireless connection our post man. But the IP (internet protocol) address is our recipient!
The IP address is a set of digits unique to computers connected to the internet. We are slowly disusing a version of addressing called IPv4 which consists of a 32 bit long number divided into 8-bits subdivided categorized to show the networks and subnetworks and the address of the specific device. This provided more than 4 billion unique addresses. This was created back in the 1970's. Today, due to the popularity of the internet and the increased access to it we have to transition into a new version called IPv6, which is made up of a 128-bit long code that will accommodate more than 340 undecillion unique IP addresses!
The DNS (Domain Name Server) is what retrieves those unique IP addresses to redirect the user upon searching for the domain name. A great example of this is trying to get to codeclannigeria.dev. The DNS takes in this information from the search bar and looks for a match from other DNS servers. Once found, it sends the address back to the host computer where it is redirected to the Code Clan Nigeria webpage! Go ahead, give it a try.
Information gets sent from one computer to another in an interesting way. It is sent in what we call packets of information. These packets take any route possible to get to its destination as quickly and safely as it can. If it can not send this information reliably, the server will warn/stop it before it reaches its destination.
Note that the web address, or URL, stands for Uniform Resource Locator of the website.
So know that your computer communicating with another miles away is called a server and these devices speak using a language called HTTP i.e HyperText Transfer Protocol. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language but this tells the browser how to make the webpage look. It dictates the text displayed on such pages and positions of the audio-visual elements but the audio-visual elements are separate files with their own URLs that need to be requested. The browser sends separate HTTP requests for each of these and displays them as they arrive. Most websites have an issued security certificate. If not your browser will warn you.
Some of us have to use information on the internet that we would rather keep private. How it is kept secret is by use of encryption. What we use today is a 256-bit encryption that will take trillions of years to decipher. With the evolution of chips today however it is only a matter of time until 256-bits is not enough. Making encryptions longer does not necessarily make it harder to crack it just increases the number of guesses one has to try. With symmetric encryption the send and receiver share the same key to scramble and unscramble a message. This key has to be agreed upon ahead of time by the two people but with computers it is impossible for them to "meet" in private. Computers use asymmetric keys, a public key that can be exchanged with anybody and a private key that is not shared. The public key encrypts data, anybody can use it to create a secret message, but this secret can only be decrypted by a computer with access to the private key.
Public Key cryptography is the foundation of all secure messaging on the open internet, including the security protocols known as SSL and TLS. This is apparent by the presence of the lock bar that appears in your search engine and the "https".
As time goes on a better method of encryption will have to be found in order to keep the information of all its users safe. Unfortunately, this doesn't completely prevent attacks on a computer.
Crime has now gone online with millions of users affected around the world by phishing or malware. Attackers work to make your computer "sick" in order to make your computer vulnerable. You can get a computer virus i.e. an executable program that gets installed, usually unintentionally, that steals your information and deletes your files.
As an internet user you should be aware of the risks of being online and act accordingly. A lot of the time there is no clever mastermind behind a cyber attack but sometimes they are given access because of a mistake YOU made. So as you arm yourself with knowledge on the internet, equip yourself to better protect your online presence. As time goes on we hope that security will improve but it takes a little knowledge on our part too to keep us safe.
Do not let that scare you though, the internet is a great space when used wisely. I hope as technology improves, you do too as you use it.