How the Internet Works

MEDIA, WHISTLEBLOWING - SURVEILLANCE, 15 Oct 2012

Sarah Wenger & Staff – TRANSCEND Media Service

Infographic – Engineering the Internet

The Internet is amazing. It allows us to communicate instantly, search for and find information on nearly anything, stay abreast of current events and, of course, watch the latest cute animal video. But how does it actually work?

Made up of servers (the machines) and clients (the users), the Internet uses a common language, called a protocol suite, to help devices “talk” with each other via telephone wires and satellites. Every device that connects to the Internet, be it a laptop, a smartphone or a gaming system, has an Internet Protocol, or IP, address. Using these addresses and the protocol suite, the Internet lets users upload, download, share and stream little packets of information.

The infographic below illustrates just how the Internet sends these packets from one place to another.

PLEASE CLICK TO VIEW INFOGRAPHIC – open-site.org

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 15 Oct 2012.

Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: How the Internet Works, is included. Thank you.

If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.

Share this article: email mastodon facebook 🔗 copy link

This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.

Comments are closed.