As someone married to a software developer, I’ve been in many conversations about the internet over the past few years. Part of our relationship routine involves Jesse attempting to explain what a server is to me again and me knowing I’ll never retain the information again. It’s fun! And it’s also deeply unsatisfying to me to feel like my mind is actively rejecting information that somehow makes sense to someone else.
But a recent conversation at work renewed my determination to figure out how the internet works once and for all. I know it’s not just me—other people want to know this too. A quick Google search of “how does the internet work” directs you to a Reddit thread where presumably well-meaning people try to explain that the internet is just like the post office. Respectfully, it’s not. As a mail aficionado, I have probably used the post office more than the average person. I feel like I have a pretty firm grasp on how mail delivery works. It’s just not the same at all. Nevertheless, I will not become discouraged, and I think I’m already starting to figure some things out.
Here’s a brief list of things I believe I know about how the internet works:
If you want to buy (or rent, since it’s an ongoing payment) a domain for a website, you need to go to the people who own all the domain names. Or maybe you need to go to the people who will then go on your behalf to the people who own all the domain names.
The simplest domain is just a period and this does not go to any kind of website.
Apparently there is an implied period at the end of every domain (which is different from a url) and this means something.
Some company called Verisign owns the .com domain and therefore every domain that ends in .com.
A website must be hosted on a server for people to be able to access it.
A server is just a computer but also you don’t want just any computer to be your server. For instance, your personal laptop at home would not be a good server because any time it was off, your website would be down. There are other reasons too, but I can’t push myself too hard just yet.
Most people are renting server space somewhere else like a server farm. I believe these are large spaces that are just filled with lots and lots of computers?
Speaking of, you can also find a website using an IP address.
We were using something called “ipv4” to create IP addresses but we used up all the available options (and there were a lot of them), so now we’re trying to use “ipv6.”
Every device has an IP address that identifies it on the network. For instance, on my home wifi, my phone has an IP address. But if I went to the coffee shop down the street and connected to their wifi, my phone would have a different IP address (I think).
But it’s not just as simple as 1 computer/server to 1 website to 1 IP address because there are more websites than servers in the world. So you host multiple websites on 1 server and this works somehow (I haven’t gotten that far).
Now I know what you might be thinking: Portia, this list does not capture the nuances of each statement and also you didn’t even cover XYZ (fill-in whatever topic you wish I mentioned)! And I’m curious why you would expect a comprehensive discussion of the workings of the internet from someone who just told you I am starting to learn something that is very difficult for me to understand. Please review this list which is 11 items long and adjust your expectations. We all have to start somewhere.
There’s a particular vulnerability I feel around this topic, hence the defensiveness in the paragraph above. I don’t know how the internet works and I’m embarrassed to admit that even though I don’t have problems owning up to other gaps in my knowledge. Perhaps this is because it feels like everyone else does understand the internet and I must have missed class that day.1 Perhaps it’s because I feel like I should understand the internet—an expectation I don’t feel with most other topics. Or perhaps it’s because I fear I’ll never be able to understand the internet. Regardless of the reason, I suppose the best place to process all of these feelings is on the internet.
1
Any other Watsky fans out there?
