Understanding Internet Security
June 1, 2021InterNet is nothing but a group of intranet systems, or a bunch of internetworks or Wide Area Networks, all interconnected with each other. The word InterNet is itself suggestive of the idea of interconnecting or networking with internet. The Internet, sometimes also known as simply “the Net” or “web,” is a global network of computers – a global network of interconnecting computer networks where users at any one machine can, when they have authorization, obtain data from another machine (sometimes referred to as the intranet). These data are retrieved by the user either by translating into a form understood on the local machine or sending it as an error through the network. This retrieval method is used both to support communication between two or more computers and to transmit information within a network.
As was already mentioned, the Internet is not just a technological entity, it is also a social one. The Internet allows users all over the world to communicate, exchange ideas and even file personal documents. The Internet is often referred to as the World Wide Web (wide web), although this terminology is somewhat misleading. The Internet encompasses so many different resources and areas that it is actually very difficult to define what exactly the Internet consists of. One can compare the Internet to a country, to a city or even a neighborhood in a country, since the Internet allows people from anywhere to participate in the Internet in many different ways.
The Internet has become a popular method of communication and for this reason it has developed several different ways of accessing it. In its early days the primary way that people visited the Internet was through a dial-up or fairly slow modems connected to a few computers locally. A dial-up modem literally took an analog signal (an electric signal, really) and transformed it into an electronic signal that the computer could understand. In other words, it was really nothing more than a bunch of individual (and occasionally connected) radio stations communicating with each other.
As time went on, the development of different technologies for connecting the World Wide Web came about, most notable of which was the development of the web browser. Various browsers have been developed over the years to allow people to browse the Internet. Initially, the Internet was accessed using TCP/IP, which is an IP-based protocol. This type of network connects two or more computer networks (each having its own address), and the IP address (which identifies the network) of one computer connects to the IP addresses of all the other computers in the network. This arrangement has the advantage of being fast (the packets are not passing through routers waiting for established connections), yet makes it very easy for other computers in the network to communicate with each other.
Today, however, there are many different options for people who want to connect to the internet. There are several different networks that use different methods, such as the Wideband Network (WAN) and the Ethernet (Ethernet). When WAN goes down (for example, because of a power outage), the effect to everyone’s ability to surf the web is actually quite minor; usually just one website will go offline for a brief period of time, allowing them to get back online. However, when EOTHINET goes down (because it was disabled by a virus), many computers will be unable to access the internet, as their entire systems become infected with a malicious program that prevents them from connecting to the internet.
In order to keep from putting all the world into jeopardy, the US Department of Defense protects the communications systems of the United States from being compromised. In order to do this, they configure their computers to use a special type of firewall that blocks foreign applications, software, and hardware from being able to connect to the internet. Many companies outside the United States have created their own versions of the National Computer Forecast Database or NCFD, which are used to protect sensitive information in large networks. The system used by the Department of Defense also blocks unsecured HTTP servers, which are often used to access a website from a foreign country. However, while the Department of Defense is doing everything it can to protect its networks, smaller companies may not have the budget to install a specialized piece of software or to purchase a costly piece of hardware to protect their computer networks from hackers.