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A Succinct Definition of the Internet?
magnamous asks: "Ever since Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes' to describe his understanding of the Internet, I've noticed several stories and comments referencing how silly that is. Although I agree that that description is rather silly, each time I've found myself trying to come up with a -succinct layman's definition- of what the Internet is, and I come up short. Wikipedia has a gargantuan page describing the Internet, and Google's definitions offer pretty good descriptions of what the Internet is in a functional sense (with some throwing in terms that the layman wouldn't understand, or take the time to understand), but not really a good description of what it -is- in the physical sense that I think Sen. Stevens was trying to get at. What are your suggestions for a succinct layman's definition of the Internet?"
I know some would say that laypeople should take the time to learn the technical, more accurate meaning of what the Internet is. The problem is that they won't. We all know laypeople. I live with two of them. When you start talking about 'TCP/IP' or 'DNS', or if you get far enough to start describing those terms, their eyes glaze over. That's what makes them laypeople — they don't care about the subject enough to learn about it in-depth; if they did, they'd be computer enthusiasts. So please keep in mind that, in order for this discussion to be useful, 'succinct' and 'layman' are essential parts to any definition of the Internet given here. Also keep in mind that 'succinct' doesn't necessarily mean one sentence; a relatively short paragraph would be fine, too — the main goal is to come up with something that physically describes the Internet in a way which laypeople can actually understand."
The internet is a collection of ideas, presented to users in a vast array of increasingly easier to use methods, by a plethora of individuals, groups, small businesses, corporations and governments, for multiple purposes involving money, fact and/or opinion. No single group of aligned parties shall control the Internet, or the Internet shall be no longer valid.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
How about "bunch of computers connected using phone lines"?
Maybe just call it "series of tubes"? Stevens is pretty layman, so I wouldn't be surprised most people can understand better with description like that.
We used to call aeroplanes "big metal birds" and people instantly associate it with "big flying things" in a physical sense. Later on, aeroplane becomes a common term and no more layman terms are needed.
So in the future the term "internet" would be enough for everyone, but right now, "series of tubes" pretty much describes its physical structure.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
It's pretty much a telephone system, except that it's computers calling other computers. Most people have a basic understanding of the workings -- if not the mechanics -- of a phone system.
licet differant, aequabitur
Succinct enough for you?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Porn and spam occasionally interspersed with content.
Possibly a solar network of computers.
"The Internet is a series of boobs."
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
I have no problem with the "series of tubes" definition. It's pretty accurate. Tubes are fixed in capacity, as are most Internet links. However, there is only one Internet. ;-)
It's not a "series of tubes". God, what a stupid definition.
It's an array of pipes!
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Just send them this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=1n4fDgmrF3o
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
What's really all that wrong about tubes as a layman's descriptor? Like any metaphor it can be taken too far, but the metaphor itself is not bad.
;-)
It's like if you were describing a car... aw never mind
Not entirely accurate, as you then have to define computers, but as close as I can come.
Ok, I give up, why you?
The Internet is a bunch of electronics which let any connected computer communicate with any other connected computer. It is useful because many of those computers provide information and services on request.
That's it. The Internet is not wires, fiber-optic cables, http, TCP/IP, or anything like that, because those are technical details which have changed in the past and may change in the future.
I thougth the "tubes" analogy was fine, myself. I don't know why people got on his case about it.
Usually when i try to describe the internet I liken it to the mail system. You have "envelopes" that are addressed to someplace. Then they get picked up by someone, thrown on a truck, routed etc. It's basically the same thing that happens with packets as they get routed.
As far as the WWW goes, that's a different and distinct thing that's built on top of the Internet. I don't think it's really that hard to explain. It's just like a library or newspaper basically.
If you want to get into the finer social implications.. then that's another story, but the basics, I think, are easily understood in terms of familiar concepts.
The internet is a big truck.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
I could say: The Internet is a network of computers linked together. Different pieces are owned by different companies and individuals. There is no central authority that controls the Internet. However the computers, services, and network connections that make up the Internet can be controlled by the owners of the parts.
Of course, that only describes one aspect. There are many aspects, so your layman's description should change with context.
"Series of tubes" is a perfectly cromulent expression.
The Internet is a collection of network computers that are assigned a valid public IP (Internet Protocol) address. That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? :-P
si vis pacem, para bellum..."if you wish peace, prepare for war"
I find that this website does a sufficient job of explaining to the less technically minded what the internet is and is all about.
That is exactly the sort of naive, elitist, holier-than-thou attitude I would expect from someone with "God spoke to me." and a link to a religious website in their sig.
(It's not about protocols. If you wired up a network using X.25 or DECNet, fired up some obscure machine, loaded up an information server on it, then provided a gateway to regular TCP/IP and a proxy to HTTP, that machine would be as much "on the internet" as any other. Any definition has to allow for non-standard connections, or it's not a complete definition of the Internet that people use.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This is how I describe it to people.
There are a bunch of computers - big and small, like the one on your desk and big ones that live in big rooms full of other computers. In between them is a lot of fiber optic cable. And organizing all the fiber optic cable is a set of junctions, like you would have in a model train set, only functioning at a bazillion miles an hour.
Each little bit of data that you ask for, and the request itself, is like a little train, going down a track. It keeps hitting these junctions that read where it is going and shunt it onto the right cable to get there. When it gets there, in all likelihood the computer at that end sends something back, which travels the same way.
Just ask any ISP sales weasle to explain it to (insert non-clued layman here), they are used to dumbing it down for clueless business decision makers at companies worldwide. Sure, half the crap coming out of it's mouth will be wrong, but it will be layman enough for most non-technical folks to at least grasp the concept...
Nobody does dumb like a dummy...
So when you come up with a good definition, please contribute and edit the Simple English page.
A bunch of wires connected to a bunch of other wires.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
I think Senator Stevens got a bad rap for that one. Techies often talk about "fat pipes" when they mean fast network connections, and evidently the image stuck in Stevens' head. I'd give him the benefit of assuming he was speaking metaphorically, since he must know that there's no actual tube connected to his computer.
Wires connecting a lot of computers.
Communication occurs over various "ports," which are similar in concept to frequencies in the radio world.
With any "layman's definition," you have to make analogies to things that the layman already understands. Otherwise, you would have to go into great technical detail. Sen. Stevens problem was that he simply repeated someone else's analogy (a telco/cableco lobbyist's for certain) but he does not understand it himself.
The analogy he used was not appropriate for explaining the internet, but it was appropriate for advocating a legislative position. By simply repeating it as if it were a scientific lesson, he made himself look like a buffoon.
A series of '0's and '1's with the occasional '2'
Taking a queue from the tired phrase "information superhighway" I have always tried to describe the internet as a series of roads to people. Granted the analogy is not perfect, but it has enough things to get close:
Bandwidth - how many lanes the road supports, the wider the number of lanes, the more traffic it can support (I also illustrate transportation types - motorcycles are fast but carry little, trucks carry lots and are slow etc.)
latency - the speed limit on that section of road
Ports/firewall ports: toll booths with only specific lanes open.
Hub: a 4 way stop.
Switch: a 4 way intersection with traffic lights.
Router: A cloverleaf overpass - often with police (police being firewall policies).
I can use the above examples with the appropriate word "traffic" and explain how network segments are slow or faster than others. Describing the methods of connecting to the network such as a 56k modem being a pot hole filled dirt road, comparing cable internet to an express way etc.
Again, not perfect, but it gets enough of the ideas across for people to make some sense of it.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Internet - A Communication System that can Survive a Nuclear War.
Hmm.. I always though Ted Steven's explanation was quite adequite, nobody else here seems to agree with me though, tough times!
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
he was trying to get at finding a way for enabling big corps who are naturally affiliated with "the good ol boys" club that runs the senate, capitol hill and administration to be able to control internet.
and his definition of internet in fact was "something we ol' boys definitely need to put a leash on and control that this freedom of information thing wont go far and hurt our 'business'"
the reason that his actual definition and what he said about the tubes seeming sooo different when you would actually hear them was his motive about "i (actually one of his aides) need to put up a definition that will further our bidding and sufficiently silly that 'stupid' (this is what ol' boys think about ya rednecks out there) people will be fooled by it and side by us".
this is what it was all about.
Read radical news here
Multidimensional, between entities that appear, disappear, and change location without notice, where the links between the clouds are mostly fictional because they might go through a wholly different cloud, but it could be useful to consider them connected. And, most of all, uncontrollable and largely imaginary: most of the patterns reflect the mind of the observer, not reality.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
virtual (and often physical) 'tubes' that data goes down - never had a problem with this personally. If we call them pipes does that sound better?
That's easy, the Internet is an information superhighway!
So why should the definition of it be so unparalleled?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Imagine a giant radish, like a planet sized radish. Now imagine that there's a bunny hopping to the radish, and it takes a bite out of it. But the bunny spits out that bite and kind of smears it back in place on the radish with a paw. Then it rains.
That's the internet.
Comment of the year
It's... it's not a big tube.
It's a serious of trucks.
An electronic system designed by scientists to allow the world wide free exchange of information for the benefit of all mankind. Later to be subverted and controlled by corporate interests for the benefit of the wealthy.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Physical: The Internet is a collection of computers that send each other messages, along with the equipment that carries the messages. Social: The Internet is a virtual community where people can get together, do business, and share ideas and culture. Functional: The Internet is a way you can use computers to send family, friends, and co-workers letters, pictures, and movies. Technical: The Internet is a collection of computers following protocols conforming to the OSI model that enable computers to communicate with each other. ...
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Don't taunt CrazyJim1. He invented every video game ever made before they were even made! He also invented a comic book where a guy has two katanas with rockets in the hilt. He holds a record for most wins in Starcraft also! (I know because it's on his resume.) You don't want to mess with CrazyJim1, man.
Comment of the year
Didn't the term "internet" come from Inter-Network or Interconnected Network or something similar?
...
...
I'm sorry; is "network" too technical for layperson comprehension? The word itself is not technical, even if the subject of computer networks is
I don't think it was the word "tubes" that got "Interwebs Ted" into trouble. I've heard a lot of technical folks over the years describe bandwidth in terms like "pipes" to make an analogy with water flow. So, "tubes" is not so far off the mark. But, a network is not a series. That's not a technical distinction, and the context is what shows that Stevens is an idiot.
If the problem is the word "network", then maybe I don't understand the term "layperson", and I'm actually the one in trouble here
I used to hear that expression all the time, never do anymore
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I will assume that the person understands what a computer is. If not, you will need to explain that, which is not included in this explanation.
A network is when a bunch of computers talk to each other. Like, when you have a bunch of computers in a computer lab classroom, and they are all plugged into each other so that you can work on a file on any of the computers.
An internet is when you gang together a couple of networks so they talk to each other.
The Internet is what you get when all the networks talk to each other.
The particulars are largely unimportant, frankly. A basic definition doesn't need to go into the particulars of routing or TCP/IP or the difference between host and network byte order. It doesn't matter that some networks use ethernet and others use wireless and some used to use token ring. Just explain what a network is. Just a regular old LAN. Then, explain that you can get networks to talk to each other just like you can get computers to talk to each other, and that is an internet.
Now, once you have the technical definition out of the way, you get to, "why gang a bunch of networks together?" Well, that's because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Internet is a gateway to information. A way to exchange ideas... all by typing and clicking on your computer. It's a way to communicate with people all around the world, to read different views on any subject you might be interested in... That, and porn & spam... but I'd keep the latter out, or else you might have to explain that as well...
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
Most of the internet is a fluffy cloud, with little lightning bolts connecting it to little brick walls with holes through them, behind which are lots of little white boxes with numbers. The rest of the internet is a series of PowerPoint slides labled "ROI" and "incredible growth" and "first mover."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
In both the physical and conceptual sense it's a mesh(/web). Physically it interconnects computers via wires in a web. Conceptually it connects ideas and information by use of hyperlinks(links for short) in a mesh. Both the conceptual and physical network are open, everyone can post ideas and links to ideas furthermore everyone can add computers to the web. It is interesting to note that the conceptual and physical internet are two separate things. There is no law binding the ideas in the internet (stored in, for example, html documents) to specific computers in the mesh. Nor is there a law stating that specific machines in the web should contain specific information. In a way the conceptual internet is distributed over the physical network the same way the pictures in a photo album are independent from the album itself.
Internet (noun): an electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities around the world.
I think this is a servicable, sucinct, definition. Of course, I would have split it in two as follows...
Internet (proper noun): the global internetwork based on the Internet Protocol.
internetwork (noun): an electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities.
but I'm a bit pedantic.
...there really hasn't ever been anything like it before.
Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" is a lot closer than the "series of tubes," although it's more like the transportation system of the entire world.
I just figured I chime in agreement. Tubes is simple and pretty convoluted. The description you've provided is succinct and provides enough building-block that a reasonable person could infer a number of complex uses based on this understanding. What am I supposed to do with pipes? (:
Quack, quack.
A pornographic media delivery system with occasional alternative uses.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
...that the Internet is a delivery system for eco-friendly porn (by lowering our consumption of glossy paper). That's why Al Gore invented it, right? To save the environment?
The Internet is like the emptiness of a vessel; and in our ...
employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness. How
deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of
all things!
Then again, I may be confusing it with the Tao.
It was software; in cyberspace. There was no system core; it could not be shutdown. The attack began at 6:18 PM, just as he said it would...
What a stupid fucking slashdot article.
I was getting fond of the tubes description.
The Internet is a global collection of interconnected, independently operated data networks. Computers connected to different networks on the Internet communicate with each other through the use of Internet Protocol, which defines a common address space, and with the aid of the independent network operators agreeing to exchange their communications.
I know people joke about the series of tubes thing, but it seems to me that was the least wrong part of Stevens' totally confused statement.
Politics aside, I don't really see the technical problem with comparing the Internet to a series of tubes. Tubes have a predictable bandwidth, i.e. you can only pump a certain amount of liquid or gas through them in a given time; and they have predictable latency, i.e. you push something in one end, it takes some time to come out the other end. So far, a lot like a network connection.
What the "series of tubes" doesn't capture is the packetized nature of the internet, or the complexities of routing, and other such details. However, at the abstraction level at which Stevens was talking, I'm not sure any of that matters. If you're talking about things like "clogging up the Internet", it's true that that can happen, for the same reasons that tubes can get clogged: if you try to put too much stuff in, at too many entry points, your backbone tubes are going to become a bottleneck. So the metaphor holds up in this case, and predicts behavior that you can see on actual networks.
The fact that the email problem Stevens was describing had nothing to do with Internet congestion is a separate issue, which doesn't actually detract from "series of tubes" as a metaphor for the Internet at a certain level of abstraction.
I'd love to hear reasons why I'm wrong. Other than "Ignore the facts, we must excoriate politicians who are against network neutrality!" Ridiculing a perfectly good metaphor just because you don't agree with the guy using it is not the way to sensible public policy, although I admit it does seem to be how politics is often conducted.
Computers are to the Internet as people are to society.
A friend of mine managed to cover this in four words over a decade ago:
"Many computers--all friends."
... but you may find it an inconvenient truth.
It's my personal playground. Now get the hell off my lawn.
The several networks cooperate by using a defined standard of communication "rules", called "RFCs", by providing selected services such as web servers, email servers, DNS systems, and other systems to the general public, and some provide more services to their customers/users.
There's the 10,000 foot over view.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
What about:
"A network of computer networks invented by Al Gore."
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Analogies are like fire, wonderfully useful but with a lot of potential for danger.
(meta usage intended) With that in mind...
Picture the internet as a vast ever changing network of many many spiderwebs all interwoven together. These spiderwebs were spun in many shapes and sizes and thicknesses by many different kinds of spiders who decided to cooperate. But, instead of catching bugs with this giant ever-evolving spiderweb, the spiders pass data through its strands to each other. Accordingly, scattered everywhere throughout this megaweb are devices that tap into the strands and pull out the data and in some way make the data useful to the spiders. More and more spiders are now carrying small portable devices that can tap into the web strands wherever they go on this giant heterogeneous megaweb. The data could be a catalog of things for sale, it could be data that is reassembled into voices for talking, or it could be pictures of the spiders doing gross things in their bathrooms. Picture some of these interconnected webs being electronic in nature like telephone lines, some are fiber-optic, and some you can't see at all, they're just made of radio waves. Now you have a basic understanding of the internet.
Elementary - check, layperson - check, succinct - hmmmm... I'm sure somebody could shorten it and not lose much.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The Internet is a forum, the media and the message, it is a library and a circus, it is news and entertainment, it is games and pirates and all kinds of information and software communicating.
The Internet is people and programs sending and receiving information to each other via computers and networks.
I don't see how you need to say anything more than that to laypeople of the kind that you describe, whose eyes glaze over when talking about technical details. Do not talk about how the internet works, just say what it is.
You can't handle the truth.
Fortunately I haven't had to describe the Internet to anyone in a long long time.
Information superhighway (or just comparing to the US road system) is pretty good:
You start with the major highways, which get progressively smaller and smaller as you get to state then town roads, then someone's house (their PC). Different kinds of traffic can flow on those roads at the same time - trucks, cars, minivans, etc. Some areas you can't easily get into or are limited (gated communities, private property, etc.).
The Internet, strictly speaking, is a network of LANs. Just because your LAN is a CIDR/32 don't let that confuse you.
a really really big one. With Vending Machines.
And it is in the middle of a Bus Station.
I like microcars
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
A collection of devices to allow communication in many forms such as text, sound, and video.
... but with holes in it.
Yell - and everyone hears you, but they soon ignore you
Whisper - and a few people hear you.
Governments would like to control it - but can't.
And best of all - when you fart in an elevator you can blame it on other people.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Internet: A worldwide network of computers and people.
The internet is a world-wide network of computers, all connected together. Some computers on the internet (called "servers") send webpages, video, and other data to computers on the internet that have requested the data.
Perhaps the phrase "a series of tubes" is mostly accurate, but it's not the reason people laughed, it's just a good summary.
Go listen to Stephens' speech again.
It's clear he's (badly) regurgitating some laymens terms that have been fed to him by god-knows what lobbyist.
Furthermore, this isn't my grandpa we're talking about, this is one of the most powerful people in the country responsible for legislation governing the internet.
The "series of tubes" phrase might be a reasonable thing you'd say to your grandpa to describe the internet. However, if he then positioned himself as an authority on the internet in front of the country's leaders, that would be funny.
The internet a world-wide infrastructure through which various kinds computers of can send and receive information.
"series of tubes".... it's all well and fine until those pesky politicians subpoena my "named" pipes...
You're starting with the wrong question. The first question to ask and answer is, "what things would you like the layperson to understand about the internet?" THEN you can figure out an easy-to-understand way to describe the internet.
In the google link of the original post is the perfect answer:
A global network connecting millions of computers.
Can we have more interesting topics for Ask Slashdot, now? Please?
Internet is for porn.
You can't handle the truth.
a series of breasts. Some of the breasts are A cups. These sites don't get as many subscriptions as some of the larger hmmmmm firmer B and C cup sites. The D cup sites are specialty sites, large, soft, supple specialty sites. Some of the old D cup sites have been sagging lately because they are getting old and in need of silicon help. There are other sites that are even Pre-A cup sites but they are illegal just about everywhere. Lastly there are NO cup sites. These sites are generally for people who install track lighting at home and listen to Judy Garland albums in silk pajamas that match the wall paper.
load "$",8,1
The internet is the largest issue of Penthouse magazine you ever saw...
I honestly think of it as a gigantic distributed brain, and if you think about the topology, that makes sense. To me, it's a step closer towards the Borg's type of hive mind...but when you take away authority issues, that doesn't have to automatically be a bad thing.
I also think of it to a degree as an acorporeal reality; a mechanistic reproduction of astral space. I think both definitions describe different elements of it; the first the knowledge part, and the second the communication part.
Either way, I love the net myself...it's my own native element the same way a fish's is water. Before my current relationship, it was the proverbial mother, brother, sister, lover, and it still is to a limited degree. It provides me with everything I could want or need short of food. It's my home.
Internet is for porn - there, fixed for you.
You can't handle the truth.
So the internet like a hookah through which you can smoke data from all over the planet man. That's totally far out.
> I don't know why people got on his case about it.
Because of the rest of the description wherein he believed that other people downloading movies somewhere were clogging the pipes and kept his "internet" (email) from arriving on time. If you watch it in context, it's clear that he doesn't know how the internet works. As far as anyone can tell, he believed the pipes are, well, literal pipes with "internets" flowing through them. Did you ever see the full speech? Only the first line gets widely quoted any more, but the Daily Show showed the whole thing. It was ridiculous.
Anyhow, the most succinct definition of "internet" I can give you is just one word: here.
Or if you need something with more technical accuracy, it's the giant network computers get connected to because almost everyone else is also connected to it. All the internet providers link to other providers, who eventually link with everyone else, because there's not much value in having a network isolated from the rest of the world in most cases.
Simple, and anyone can understand it this way: The internet is what you get when you put as much porn as possible in one easy to access package.
I think that there are certain words we can get away with using that a lot of people are trying to avoid, like "network." Network is a layman's term; television network, telephone network, etc. Don't be afraid.
The internet is an information network, allowing people to exchange documents, messages, pictures, video and audio with anybody in the world. All you need to participate is a computer and a connection.
Does that work for you? Any explanation after that assumes that the person you're talking to starts asking questions; this should work for a start. If they don't care, then you haven't wasted too much time or energy, either.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
A planet-spanning ad-hoc network of devices communicating via the internet protocol.
Software patents delenda est.
The word "internet" (lower case) is a shortened form of the more formal term "internetwork." An internetwork is an über network of interconnected networks that utilize the same communication protocol. The Internet (upper case) is the worldwide public internet. Many organizations connect their computers to a private internet. Most organizations are connected to each other through the public Internet.
... is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Internet is. You have to see it for yourself.
The Internet is a set of sophisticated protocols and connections allowing any 'connected' computer or appliance to communicate.
The World Wide Web (Web) is an array of services available on the Internet, allowing individuals, groups, corporations and governments to read, publish, buy or sell - to or from - broad or narrow audiences.
But the Internet is more than just the Web - it allows a wide array of services and products to communicate, from email to machine to machine reporting and control, to new forms of telephony and new kinds of software that 'feels local', but isn't. The only constant of the Internet is change, and the largest threats to the Internet are from entities that want to slow or halt progress or the free exchange of ideas.
You know. The establishment. Entrenched power, whether religious, political or corporate.
The Internet represents change, for good or ill.
No one can be told what the Internet is. You have to see it for yourself.
[/morpheus]
I just answer that it's a network of network. Everybody knows a network, like a social network, etc. and everybody do understand what could be a network of network. Ok, that didn't include the downsides, like spam, ads, pirates, or whatever.
And that's why we still have spam, because SMTP thinks all computers are our friends.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Individual computers are buildings -- homes, business, etc. The roads connecting those buildings are the wires and cables that carry data around the Internet. Each building (computer) knows how to directly communicate with some or all of its neighbors (you can walk next door) but data needs to travel on the roads to communicate with more distant buildings (computers).
There are lots of different types of vehicles (protocols) that are used to send data along the Internet -- regular cars (HTTP), buses (FTP), trucks (other protocols), etc. Often computers will send data piecemeal in multiple vehicles. These vehicles often need to get directions (routing) at various buildings (computers) to reach their destinations. When one road is blocked (network downtime) the vehicles with the data can find their way along other routes to reach their destinations, or the source of the data will write the stuck vehicle(s) as lost and resend them on new vehicles.
Having worked in networking for over 20 years, I have always liked the fire bucket brigade analogy. There are many parts that must work in harmony to get the job done. Some have the boring task of just handing the bucket to the next one in line, but without them, the connection is broken. Also, the buckets can be any shape or size, as long as they have a sturdy handle and don't leak.
The Internet is no single piece of technology. It is an agreement about how to have different networks and technologies talk to each other and work together.
It's a bit heady, maybe even a bit airy-fairy, but the essay captures some of the essence of why the Internet is different and proves to be so valuable.
I also think it's a good lead in for discussing why net neutrality is essential. A non-neutral policy essentially throws away the agreement, likely fracturing the network into pieces between which there'd be ongoing maybe-we'll-talk-maybe-we-won't negotiations. Pieces get balkanized, even walled off, and resources that used to go to developing services that anyone who was part of the agreement could use now have to be devoted to the negotiation.
With the Internet agreement, you don't have to concentrate on that. Just follow the guidelines on how to talk to one edge of the net, and you can talk to the whole world. That's the revolution.
Tweet, tweet.
The Internet is telephone for computers.
:-)
That works pretty well. If people get confused about Wifi, sometimes I might suggest it is like cellphones for computers.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
IN fact that's where the terminology game from. Why do you think a bunch of data is called a packet? Its cause packets are what you send through the mail, at least in the 50's thats what they were called (nowadays everyting is a "package" but that's more because the term "packet" is now more widely used electronically.
If you want to explain the internet to people, use the analogies that the original terms were modeled after!
Server - A server is like a waiter or customer service person. You ask it for something and get get sir for you. The ony difference is the server is a computer that is handling the requests.
Client - A client is like a patron or business client; he is the person asking the server for things. In the case of the internet the client is another computer, who is asking the server for something.
Packet - A bundle of information, with an address, that needs to be delivered. The packet could be going from the client to the server, in which case it is how the client is asking the server for something. If it is going from the server to the client, it is the information the server asked for.
Server, Client, Packet. Three simple words any layperson SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. It's not really hard to explain.
It's a massive peer-to-peer collection of interconnected computers storing and sharing various bits of data among the whole.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
nuf said.
The Internet is just like the global telephone network, except that instead of you talking into your telephone, your computer screams funny noises into its communication line (which can be your phone line!).
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
And a movie can be even better.
A big company wanted its people to understand Internet and asked a video to be created for that purpose.
That video is accessible here:
http://www.warriorsofthe.net/
This is at the same time entertaining and quite educative, although slightly dated.
Show this to people instead of trying to express concepts with words.
Highly recommended.
It's a constantly changing electronic version of a huge department store full of magazines. Throw in one and two-way video and cell phones, and the description is complete.
Magazines are websites. Every imaginable subject, from National Geographic and Scientific American, to porn.
The advertising inserts are pop-ups.
All magazines carry a ton of advertising, same as the internet.
Obviously, usage of video, and communication is TVs and two-way video.
Cell phones represent VOIP.
Store display signs and pamphlet passouts are email.
how stupid do you think "laymans" are?
show the layman two 22 year olds on xboxes playing halo 2 in rooms next to each other screaming profanities and acting like complete assholes while jacking off and eating cheesos
then say the internet is that x 2 billion
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's a collection of billions of computers all over the world connected together in a large network. bing!
"A series of tubes" really does sum up what the Internet is. It was a perfectly appropriate and correct metaphor. It is, much like a reticulated water or gas or electrical or superhighway system, a data transport utility comprised of interconnected networks of networks, each with different
Look, we all use the term "pipe" already to mean "data connection" and we know exactly what we mean. Jumping on Stevens for his use of the term was really just a ridiculous display of snobbishness, combined with a deep-seated (and justified) unease about the future of Internet freedom in the face of corporate encroachment.
I think the reason for the ugly kneejerk reaction was that Stevens' argument hit a little close to home: we all know that bandwidth in various Internet subsystems *is* a limited resource, and that large numbers of users downloading mass quantities of rich media *does* put a stress on this resource, and in a sensibly managed internetwork we should act to conserve it. But because it's untrustworthy cable providers and vertically integrated data/media monopolies advancing the 'bandwidth conservation' pitch to cover their hatred of the Internet's openness and their desire to decommoditise it, we instinctively distrust everything they say. And we want to pretend that downloading 'huge quantities of material' DOESN'T 'clog the pipes', to take that argument away from them. And for that reason (and to make lawmakers look like a bunch of old men who Just Don't Get It), Stevens had to be discredited.
But laughing at a valid argument doesn't make it go away. What we *should* be saying is: Yes, data transfer costs money, it doesn't come for free. But freedom is also important. So bill data users honestly, by the gigabyte per month. Don't try to impose vertical integration monopolies because they distort the true cost of data transfer, don't try to double-dip and hold websites to hostage for bandwith both they and the home users have already paid for, don't filter traffic by data type, don't prevent users from copying and locally caching as much rich media as they can (because local caches save bandwidth) - and we'll all get along fine.
But no, it's so much easier just to laugh at funny stupid ol' Tube Guy who doesn't realise bandwidth is free like air.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The analogy extends nicely to DNS=Directory Assistance, so it's a pretty handy model.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
I am a layman in medicine, but when I have a health problem I make it my business to understand it the best I can. I am a layman in law but when I must deal with the legal system I will take the time to learn how it works. I am a layman in accounting (and I think it's extremely boring and it makes me sleepy) but during tax time I put in the effort to understand what and why I am paying for. As a computer layman if you want to (or need to or are forced to, just like taxes) use the Internet, you better MAKE yourself interested - or suffer the consequences. If you want the easy path, "series of tubes" is good enough for you. Now go IM on AOL and stop wasting my time.
A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.
No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions.
Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawn mower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitroglycerin and idle at 120.
No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirt guns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.
No off ramps. None.
Author (maybe, it's hard to track down sources on the Net): Jim Wiedman
Unfortunately, large corporations such as AOL (refuses to follow email RFCs) and Comcast (worm central) think they are above honoring the agreements that make up the Internet. Slowly, though, they are wising up - FIOS is going to eat comcast's lunch, not because of speed, but because Verizon is closer to being RFC-compliant.
The internet is the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship "can be reached by an IP packet from".
I didn't come up with this, but I don't know who did.
INTERnational NETwork always worked for me
The Internet is a crowd of people, or rather their computers, in one large room. Everyone knows something, some people and their computers are usefull, some are useless, and some know things that I'd rather not know. If you (your computer) wants to know something that someone else knows, you ask the guy next to you, who asks the guy next to him, who asks another guy, all the way out to the point where someone has the answer, and sends it back to you through a whole bunch of other one way tosses of information. Some people can't talk to other people, because they dont' have the security rights to, or because that person's computer is just snoby. Some people talk to the same person over and over. Some people get talked to so much that they are slow at responding to you, or simply aren't able to until they get a little more free time. And of course, someone always has a cold, the flu, or malaria that they're willing to share with you and your computer after they steal your wallet. So watch who you stand next to.
Internet is a collection of independent communication networks, connected to form a much bigger communication network through mutually shared collaborative connection agreements; a General Purpose Communication System.
People describing IP, TCP, Web, Usenet, VOIP all miss out on what the internet REALLY is, communication. The means, methods, routing and all of that is what makes it work, but not the purpose. Purpose is ONLY communication, nothing more, nothing less.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Breast thread?
Parent is modded flamebait and troll??? If I had mod points I'd mod it +1 insightful.
The internet is a large group of computers connected over a specific system called "IP," which know how to arrange a game of chinese phone system to get messages from any point to any other. The power of the internet is that every point on it is both a server and a client - that is, a host and a consumer - at the same time, and there is no concept of priority; it lets anyone who can develop a product compete on an even playing field, and that playing field is generic enough to support a startling array of systems.
The power of the internet is quite simply in that everyone's a server.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
The whole problem with trying to answer this question, is that the question should be unasked.
The Internet (as we understand it), is really an abstraction built for the express purpose of making it so nobody has to _care_ what things look like on the physical level. That's the whole point of the seven-layered protocol stack, half of the RFC's, and the whole concept of a network of peers who can all send and receive requests and information.
Put that in yer pipe an' smoke it.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
That 'definition' even allows for anti-social/'disconnected' people/computers, as well as isolated societies/networks. "Society" is understood to be "the body of human beings generally" (The Internet), but can also be used synonymously with "community" (a network).
The Internet cannot be described solely as a physical thing because that definition (the lay one) would only describe a network and because the computers (and even protocols) are always changing (or at least could without being a different network).
While Uruviel (somewhere else in this discussion) used the analogy of computers being photos in an album, it has the issue of the empty album (is The Internet just the infrastructure?).
My thought was that of computers being photos spread out on a table. Some photos could be placed together as pairs or groups. Some of these groups could be quite large but there would be one HUGE heap of photos in the middle. We can't just call the big heap a collection of multiple photos because there are many of these, so we then choose to give this heap (independent of the individual photos that are added/removed from it) a name. A suitable one would be The Heap. It isn't unique in its makeup but is significant enough to be uniquely identified.
Disclaimer: IANANE (Network Engineer)
If you google for his nick, he actually was a high-level Starcraft player before he went insane. "famous" is pushing it, but I suppose by the standards of videogame players he was.
Other have come up with some good definitions, but one thing that hasn't been emphasized and which I think is essential, is ownership.
Who owns The Internet? The internet is owned by everybody and nobody in particular. The government does not own it. You don't own it. The telephone company does not own it. When you've paid for internet access, you aren't renting part of the internet. Instead, you're paying someone to run some equipment so you can take part in the internet. You may own or rent equipment or service, but the internet is what happens when the whole thing works together as a system.
That is not very succinct, of course. Maybe something like, "The internet is the phenomenon of everyone hooking their computers together and operating according a common standard of communication so all the computers have an opportunity to talk to each other. The internet is owned by nobody and everybody at the same time."
- Hey! I've just installed Internet...
- You can't install the Internet, it's billions of pages!
- Ok... Umm... So where are all these pages if not installed on my computer?
- They are on billions of computers around the world, and each of these computers have special weird names, like yahoo.com, wikipedia.org, imdb.com, etc.
- And how do I read these pages if they are on other computers than mine, on the other side of the world?
- Like you can call someone on the phone on the other of world! Your computer uses wires, cables, satellites, airwaves, etc. to talk to the other computers.
it's skynet, before it becomes self-aware
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Internet: A large interconnected group of computers, spread worldwide and beyond, for the sole purpose of spreading porn.
You moved your mouse. Please restart Windows for changes to take effect.
Best analogy:
The Internet is a worldwide crowd of computers passing little notes to one another. Pass enough notes, and you can say the lengthiest thing you want.
This analogy is best because packets and notes written on paper are very similar, and the issues of the Internet are similar to those involved in note passing. Congestion in this model results from one computer getting more notes than it can easily handle at once. Contrast this with a lame tubes analogy, which makes it sound like tubes themselves can get clogged. In the Internet, the actions of the nodes are the important things, and the medium over which they communicate is largely irrelevant except to those responsible for making it work.
Series of tubes, that is.
problem solved.
The Internet is for porn!
The Internet is for porn!
Why you think the Net was born?
Porn, porn, porn!
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
The internet is short for "inter-networking", and refers to a network of computer networks. This type of network of computer networks was originally developed at the US government organization ARPA and was called ARPAnet. It mainly had four uses or functions:1.HTTP, 2.FTP, 3.Hyper Terminal and 4.Email. It's use proliferated after Tim Berner's Lee invented the World Wide Web, which is the present form in which we still know and use it today.
People understand that telephone lines connect telephones. Computer lines connect computers. Telephone companies have had computer swithes and PBX for years. But to the public the telephone system was described in terms of the telephone lines that run into their house. Telephones have since gone cellular. People still associate telephones with telephone lines. The Internet is the computer lines and hardware used to connect computers for the express purposes of conveying information. Sometimes the lines are replaced by airwaves in the same since celluar phones replace telephone lines with airwaves. The concept of Internet should not be used to describe the unlimited possibilities of content being provided, albeit Email or computer phones--which are nothing more the computing devices dedicated to a single purpose of conveying voice over computer lines.
"Ever since Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes'"
Considering the net is mostly pr0n0graphy, an array would be a better description.
I think the Daily Show just latched onto it because a Republican said it, and Jon Stewart is a well-known Democrat. "Series of tubes" is a perfectly reasonable description of bandwidth pipes and packet queues. The guy was just trying to describe bandwidth starvation to laypeople.
"Sufferin' succotash."
You can't intelligently route a "series of tubes", where as you can route around congestion on a network. Further, there's an implication that you can't easily expand capacity in a "series of tubes", where as you can, easily, on a network. (Or in our case, simply activate some unused fiber.)
The part of the "series of tubes" metaphor that's made fun of is the "series of" rather than the "tubes". When we talk about pipes, we're referring to an individual connection, not the network as a whole. Like most metaphors, it breaks when you change the scale.
The series of tubes is a pretty good analogy to the telephone network (which is circuit switched).
The internet (which is packet-switched) is like a giant electronic version of the USPS, except that you pay a subscription fee instead of postage and any mail over the maximum size gets automatically broken up and reassembled.
In fact, ZIP codes and IP addresses share a common structure (a 2 part region and entity distinction).
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
If you understood what a metaphore was, you would understand that the "series of tubes" was an apt description of the post office.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
That is the simplest of explanation, it is simply the network of smaller networks that are connected together.. Its simple to explain what a network is.. Its just a collection of communicating devices..
A simple analogy is the voice network of networks [International Calls / Local Telephone Providers] and tell them instead of telephones its more versatile communication devices like computers.
Hang on a second isnt the N95 a computer now ?
And a network is just a group of connected computers.
to mail me, first remove the evil spam.
The internets like a tranportation network.
The bread and butter of it is roads. Theres loads of cars and buses and various vehicles flying about the place all going to different destinations. Some roads are wider then others, get bogged down with traffic and that. Most people are going shopping, heading to the same shops downtown to pick up some goods and then head home. Places all have addresses, but most people just remember the names and ask for directions along the way (thats dns for you, although most dns servers are better then random people directions wise)
You also got your train lines (virtual circuits) and your airports (udp) and potholes and dodgy signposts and pirates... but the basic analogy works methinks.
What I have told people older than myself who have asked is that "the Internet is a system for customer-dialled, and even fully automatic, telegrams. Because they charge a flat rate for service and the messages themselves are free, it gets used for all kinds of everyday things, like newsletters, catalog stores and—it can send pictures on the principle of a facsimile—things like poster walls." This explanation has the dual advantages of referring only to technology available for a century now, and of being true in full technical detail.
;).
I've repeatedly got reactions from agèd people like, "Huh! Maybe I'll get myself a computer then. That's nothing scary, after all. And I miss telegrams."
But this won't help the younger generation, who probably don't remember back when we had civilisation and technology and stuff
Customer dialled telegrams aren't rocket science; I have no idea why the 'net is so mystified in modern life.
The Internet that can be defined is not the true Internet.
"What are your suggestions for a succinct layman's definition of the Internet?" This is a general question it deserves a general answer, not specifics with specifications or stupid analogies by pseudo-experts. So, it is good to ask the /. community, but the simple answer is; applied technology should be used for the good of all, by everyone not just the wealthy. Like the phone, TV, Xray, radio .... 99+ out of 100 have no fycking idea what FM, AM, radiation, bits/byts ... (at a technology level) are, but it has been part of their lives for 50 to 100 years. IOW: politicians should use the tools and quit acting like, and being the talking head fools of Washington, DC selling out to special corporate interest.
... technology, and should not need special training to apply technology. Layfolks learn, what they need, to use a technology tool they require.
... many make more money than I do, but I can still ficking NYX-phreak globally ... when I need too. As long as the mechanics, carpenters ... don't attempt to fix/install telecommunications I am happy (either way fully employed). I do wish politicians would stop letting corporatist and lobbyist write all the laws in the USA, EU, Russia, China, India ....
... "how silly that is?", really "how pitiful that is" politicians thinking that special corporatist interest authoring public law make them a technology expert.
... are delusional fools that believe they know technology and science, while Citizens as carpenters, brick and tile experts, manufacturing workers, bankers, lawyers, artist, architects, doctors, salespersons ... do not care anything about understanding the Internet, but are happy to use the Internet as a tool for doing work, entertainment, communicating with friends....
... not for folks that just want a tool for doing work, contacting family, keeping informed ....
/ 23/0127202 for me it fits "The Worst US/EU Laws" on technology... or something.
So, I would never say that laypeople should take the time to learn technology, because it is their purpose as customers to buy and use technology for intended uses. Layfolks are not going to repair/build/R&D technology, install, configure, test
Good Example: "When you start talking about 'TCP/IP' or 'DNS', or if you get far enough to start describing those terms, their eyes glaze over." this is what happens to me when dogmatics talk religion or politics, or I poke fun at them and laugh at them, you know like some of them and young geeks do the old tube/analog ancient geeks.
I can't fix a car, drive a nail, build/roof a house, toss pottery, paint a portrait, act on stage or TV
"Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes' to describe his understanding of the Internet." This is the same for 99+ out of 100 Representatives, Senators, Presidents/VP & Staff, Citizens
"How reality is." Representatives, Senators, Presidents/VP & Staff, Citizens are equally incompetent about technology. Politicians (almost all globally) CEOs..., televangelist, popes, Imams
I submit; that the general public understand everything they need to know about the technology they use everyday is far more significant, than the fools that are image conscious idiots [AKA: politicians] making foolish anti-competitive laws. Good hardworking layfolks do not need a BS-succinct definition of what the Internet "is", because IT/Internet ain't one thing (politicians just think it is ?something?).
Wikipedia has a gargantuan page describing the Internet for professors, students, programmers, net/sys admin
Oh, if some one has time; Please do me a favor, post the above over on http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
That's the best definition I've ever heard. It also explains why many parents and governments try to keep their little ones away from it.
Does the internet exist if nobody is connected?
The best way to succinctly define the Internet to a 'layperson' would be to sit them down in front of a computer, load www.google.com and then say, "Ask Google what the Internet is?" They would quickly develop a working definition.
How about "bunch of computers connected using phone lines"?
I use a cable modem, you insensitive clod!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
There, that wasn't so hard.
-ted
The internet is a computer network linking together smaller computer networks owned by many different companies and individuals.
The problem the OP is having is that they are trying to come up with a defination without requiring that person being told the definition actually learn anything. 'A series of tubes' is a great way of describing the internet as plumbing, but it requires that the person have an understanding of plumbing anyway.
Most people who have access to the internet have an idea what a computer network is, as they have one in their office.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
...which looks out anywhere you want. In the absence of net neutrality, of course, we'd need to revise that definition to "...anywhere _they_ want."
The Internet is the series of roads that lead to all destinations. Traffic lights are the routing rules that control the direction and flow of data. Cars are packets. IP addresses are locations or places on the Internet. Host names are equivalent to calling '12321 Main Street' 'Bob's house'. The interstates are the Internet Backbone and allow you to cover great distances within the city in a shorter amount of time. Toll roads lead to ISP specific content. etc, etc, etc... This also works well in describing bandwidth saturation (traffic jams) to non technical people. If you make your roads wider, your traffic is less congested and therefore moves faster from point to point. When you move from a three lane road to a two lane road, you tend to get traffic jams at these bottlenecks in high activity periods.
A scalable framework for frictionless flow of information.
Many "laypeople" don't know what a "network" is. When they do start to understand that two computers can talk to eachother, they don't understand what part a "web browser" plays.
Some people still think "Internet Explorer" is the internet. You and I know that's not true. You and I know that HTML and HTTP are only a tiny part of what is now the internet. Lots of people don't.
Here are 10 points. The first 4 are just background.
I used to be on CRS Online back in the long ago. I think I downloaded my first linux from there.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Maybe just call it "series of tubes"? Stevens is pretty layman, so I wouldn't be surprised most people can understand better with description like that.
I think criticisms of Stevens' "series of tubes" comment are a tad overblown. After all, the engineers DO use "pipes" as a term of art for the connections between routers. I suspect Stevens heard some of this talk and was trying to repeat it, but warped "pipe" into "tube" - a reasonable layman mistake.
"Informaiton superhighway" is actually not all that bad (with packets as little mail trucks carrying postcards, core routers as interchanges, and edge routers as on ramps).
Personally I like "container shipping", though:
- Data is shipped from any computer (big company) to any other.
- Data is packed into little shipping containers, called "packets", and mounted on little trucks (or whatever) for shipping.
- You write the destination and return address on each packet, so the shipper knows where to send it and who to notify if something goes awry, and the recipient knows who it's from. For some kinds of packets you also add a sending and receiving department. You may also label it with what sort of thing it contains and how to handle it: (Perishable: get it there fast or throw it out. Important: Take extra care to get it there even if it goes slower. Junkmail: Dump it before you'd dump something important.) And you label it with a maximum number of sorting centers to go through (so it won't keep getting shipped around forever if the shippers get confused about routes).
- The capacity of a packet is pretty small, so if you have a big chunk of data (like a novel, the encyclopedia brittanica, or a continuous data feed like frames of film or a magazine subscription) you have to break it up into multiple packets to ship it. You number the pieces so your big chunk, or continuous stream, can be reassembled at the other end. (Actually your shipping department does this for you: See TCP.)
- Every port on every host is a loading dock with a distinct address. (The loading docks on shipping centers have distinct addresses, too.)
- The packets are each loaded onto a distinct delivery van or container-shipping flatbed truck.
- A link between a host and a router, or between two routers, is a way to ship packets. It might be a road, or a scheduled or intermittent stream of ships, cargo planes, or trains. Roads come in various sizes, from country dirt roads (dialup modem links), through paved private roads (DSL links, T1s) to giant, multilane, interstate/autobahn arteries (fiber optic lines). It might be a conveyor belt, where you get regularly-scheduled slots, or one where you can use the next empty slot.
- IP core networks are freeways. TDM networks (digitized telephone backbones) are conveyor belts. Satellite links are regularly (or irregularly) scheduled cargo spacecraft. And so on.
- The shipping company might stuff the packet in a bag and put its own outer label on it, with the address of the next sorting center. Depends on the particular carrier's procedures.
- Core routers are sorting centers.
- Edge routers are the first/last shipping center - where the pickup/delivery vans to the customers bring the packages.
- Peering points are where two shipping companies hand off containers to each other.
- Subscriber management boxes are shipping centers where extra work is done: Inspecting the package and dumping bombs, dope, and junkmail. Collecting postage or tolls. Checking that the customer is paying his bills and not shipping too many packages at a time, etc. Sometimes this is done at the "edge" shipping center. Sometimes the company only has one or a few, and routes all the packages through one.
- Packets might be transshipped between different kinds of transport: Delivery bike (dialup), truck (IP network), bullet train (fibe
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Parent (AC) is totally right. If you can get someone to understand the basics of the internet, and they want to understand how the data is sent... It's just like a postal system. Except instead of hundreds of postcards a minute... it's billions.
Wherever you go with the definition, what about using the TCP/IP protocol as the starting point? Wasn't the TCP/IP the protocol that implemented the idea of a routing protocol that would withstand nuclear war?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
First, one should describe what a network is:
A network is two or more computers that communicate with each other using sets of rules, called protocols. Different protocols are used for different types of communications.
The Internet is a very large network, containing billions of computers, and allowing for a vast majority of protocols.
The world wide web is a collection of documents stored on computers on the Internet, which can be transferred using the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the HyperText Transfer Protocol with Security (HTTPS).
These words:
This is not an exhaustive list, but I think it recognizes most of what was intended as DARPAnet evolved into the early Internet, and the way the Internet has grown since that time.
It looks like when you ask a geek community to 'define' the internet they instead try to explain how it works. I don't think that's the case when you ask people to define similar systems, like the USPS, or the telephone system. What about defining the US interstate system, or hell the legislative system. Don't explain how it works, define it more as what it is or what it does .
;) It can be used for education, communication, and entertainment.
The Internet is the networking of computer networks, worldwide.
Beyond that you're either describing how it works, what it's used for, or some intricate detail that isn't necessarily universal. The Internet can run across copper, or fiber, or through the air. It can use a variety of protocols stacked upon each other in a variety of ways. It can be fast, it can be slow, it can be redundant, it can secure, or it could just be two autonomous devices telling each other that they are each working properly. It can be used for private, public, or professional purposes. It can be used for good, or it can be used for EVIL
But it's just computers talking to each other, worldwide.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I've never heard the context but I always thought series of tubes was a pretty good analogy or atleast the start of one. Assumed he got so blasted cause it sounds silly and most people didn't have a clue.
One problem is the intenet has many layers both hardware and software. You have to pick to describe.
Any hi-level pseudo-physical description should hit these points:
1. the ends are what's important, each "device" connected has an address. The middle is just a carrier like roads or the ocean or pipes.
2. that it is packet switched, the data knows its sender and reciever addresses and special machines in the middle part know how to get the data 1 hop closer to it's destination address.
3. peering & the "inter" part of it. That the various wires/tubes the packets flow through are owned by different people. Nice point to segway into net-neutrality.
It would be easy to describe the Internet to a layman, but only if that layman has the cognitive understanding tha has been required to invent the computer age in the first place. (it wasn't new to the computer age, but it is fudamental to it.)
The understanding is the same as the one required to understand evolution (whether or not evolution is accurate). It's the concept of abstraction.
Without it, any description of the Internet results in the completely valid question of "yeah, I understand about ip, and routing, and packets, and bytes; but how does that let me get my daughter's cat photo?"
It works the same way with any sparsely co-ordinated structure. For example, how do soldiers know when to advance? You very quickly get into hierarchal command structures and the idea of cascading decisions with a whole lot of trust.
Bytes are the very same. If you can represent one number, and you can represent millions of numbers, and your cat photo can be represented as numbers, then you have to accept/trust/understand that you can photo can be a whole whack of bytes. But most have a lot of trouble with such things.
Same goes for evolution. (again, not talking about any truth/accuracy here) If you can understand the simple concept of something like natural selection, you still need to be able to accept the long and drawn-out follow-through which makes such simple forces sufficient to produce such complex results.
I don't believe that most people have the capacity to understand the concept of abstraction layers -- that the "simple" can be abused to create the "complex" and that the "complex" can be absolutely nothing more than a rediculous amount of "simple".
But that's obvious. That's why it took thousands of years of civilization for some random guy to have a theory. It's happened, I'd argue, for every innovative concept in the last ten thousand years. In order for lay people to understand a new concept, that concept needs to be ubiquitous for at least one entire generation. The Internet, as a societal ubiquity, has only been around for ten years -- and only in some parts of the world. I figure we've got another ten years before it becomes ubiquitous (used, optimally/appropriately at every level of civilization without prejudice). That means it'll take about thirty years from today before the general lay person can be counted on to understand it -- at least superficially.
Looking thirty years back, what should everyone understand today?
"The Internet is a network of networks."
Any more than than and their eyes just glaze over.
"The Senator is right in some respects - the Internet is not a dump truck. Here is a picture of a dump truck: with rare exceptions, people cannot use that picture to masturbate; therefore it is *not* the Internet."
"Now, as for calling the Internet a 'series of tubes,' that, I admit, is not the most apt comparison. A better metaphor might be... oh, I don't know, off the top of my head: a NET? Or an 'Inter-net'?"
I've always liked "The Internet is a Network of Networks"
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
In discussions like this many people tend to confuse "how it works" with "what it is". To most of the world it doesn't matter how it works.
My suggestion on what it is:
The Internet is another whole world that you can only get to through your computer. It has information, entertainment, shopping, and social groups. Just like the real world, it also has crime, hate, and misinformation. And just like the real world, when we all participate in the Internet as good citizens, it enriches our lives. Unlike the real world you can participate in all these activities without leaving your home.
I've always described it as a city's streets. There are big roads (highways) that take a lot of traffic and small roads for less popular routes. It's easy then to demonstrate congestion, and even IP addressing by using the analogy of a mailing address. You have your popular locations (malls etc) and even banks. :)
It's not perfect - to bring in ISPs, you have to make it a world where everyone hires a car to use, rather than having their own transport. And the argument against a "tiered internet" breaks down a little when you realise we already have tolls on various highways and bridges in the real world.
comic gold
It's a bunch of computers hooked together.
How hard was that?
I'd say it's sort of a cross between a museum, one of those sushi boat places, and the mail service, all done at light speed...
It's a museum in that it's got places for everything, different sections, and you can find just about anything. A sushi place in that things come in tiny packets, you don't get your whole order all at once. It's like the mail service in that, unlike the sushi places you don't usually see everyone else's stuff. Someone sorts all the little packets and sends them on to the next office.
So, it's like a sushi boat restaurant with many tracks. You write down your order, rip it into tiny pieces place each piece in a boat with the name of the chef it should go to. It heads down to the router who picks it up, along with the other hundred thousand or so boats that other people have sent, and sorts them into the proper tracks. It passes through several other routers until it reaches the chef. The chef then reassembles your order and makes it up, putting each piece on a separate boat with your table number on it. The pieces of sushi go back the same way your order did, possibly a different route if one of the routers is on a break or too busy. Finally they reach you and you collect all your boats and you've got your meal. If you've got several people at the table then you'd have mentioned that to the chef and he'd mark it as such so that when you get the boats you can divide it up properly.
Computer networks are ubiquitous enough that most people with any attachment to business know what a network is. Just describe the Internet as a network of networks. That's what it is, after all.
They don't have to understand how it actually works. But they understand the concept of networking through social networking. It's a concept that's innate to human nature. Computer networking really isn't any different, and isn't a hard topic for people to grasp in general terms.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
questions regarding the nature of the internet can be answered by expounding on the following thesis:
the Internet is a set of communications protocols (how) and peering agreements (what, where) for transferring information (why) across various private networks (who). all of the time.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
I like to use Webopedia for succinct definitions like this.
"A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions..."
http://webopedia.com/TERM/I/Internet.html
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Machine talk machine
No need to know where in world
Bring me lots of porn
That's what it is, innit?
That's how I tried to explained the internet to my mother. Each Computer has a telephone number (= IP number), which can be used by computers to call one or more other computers (single call, conference call). WWW is just a way how they talk to one another, when they are connected. Surely not more correct than the series of tubes, but it was good enough for her.
Someone should tell Ted "I love that pork! Oink! Oink!" Stevens that the Internet is more like an electronic bridge to anywhere as opposed to a $300 million dollar physical bridge to nowhere.
Oh, they have Internet on computers now...
Personally, I liked the Coral Cache helpfulness in the original submission, just in case Slashdot Slashdots Google. Having just re-read what I just wrote I have to wonder what language I'm writing.
The internet in 4 words:
Computers communicating with eachother.
It may not be quite accurate but anyone who's ever heard of a computer can understand that sentence. That is if they speak english.
Gehan G.
Seems to me we already have a decent laymans term for the internet. The web, or to be more exact a "Spiders Web."
The Internet is a global network of computers, like the telephone network. Simple.
Most people here seem to believe that the actual mechanics of the internet are important to the layperson. Nope. Exclamation points, however. . .
-FL
...but the Internet is something entirely different.
With all due respect to former Vice President Al Gore, the “superhighway” analogy was thin at best.
Senator Stevens took a stance for all that is “layman” by stating, “It's a series of tubes.” His statement brings to light the genuine need for a layman's understanding for the greatest collaborative network known to human-kind.
Perhaps we should start there; a collaborative network. That's just a general sentiment for what the Internet really is, because it doesn't just let people collaborate. It also lets us compete-with, share, ridicule, praise, shame, acknowledge, threaten and even enlighten others.
We should make a distinction between the “Web” and the “'Net”, because one is a part of the other. The “Web” is just the part of the Internet that we access with a Web Browser, even to include all the rich media content we enjoy every day. The Internet goes much, much further than that.
The Internet is e-mail. The Internet is 'chat'. The Internet is online gaming. The Internet is merchantibility. The Internet is news. The Internet is business. The Internet is government by self-rule. Yes indeed, the Internet is also a tremendous conveyor for pornographic media. The Internet is many things to many people, but then again, just what is it?
What I noticed on the Google page was a plethora of technical definitions, focusing on the nuts-and-bolts that make the Internet work. That said, it still isn't enough to really define the Internet, is it? I mean, there's more to your iPod than some miniaturized electronics, a small LCD screen and a hard drive, yeah?
The Internet must be something more than what we can tangibly see and touch. It's more than T-1, more than fiber, more than bridges and routers and hubs. (oh my!)
I seem to be failing at the “succinct” part, here. Still, considering all that's been covered to this point, there must be words “big” enough, yet simple enough for anyone to easily grasp.
Here are my humble attempts to name the Un-nameable:
Communication (pure and simple)
Connections (abstract, but to the point)
A Portal (yeah, vague)
The Presence of Remote Information (maybe that's just the Web)
The Human Connection (too much like a slogan?)
This is no easy task, (whatever you others might think) and may—IMHO—require the invention of new words, or new semantics for existing words. Hey, we've done it before!
I've always admired Marshall McLuhan for his philosophies, and insight into the modern age. His book, The Medium Is The Massage (sic) he basically predicts the emergence of computing and networks, as “an extension of the mind”.
McLuhan was thought esoteric, but also coined the term, “global village”. The idea is that, the great idea to connect human ideas (the Internet) will ultimately bring the human culture full-circle to a borderless tribal-state.
Is that it, then? Maybe it's more philosophical than practical, but I think The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas puts it together nicely. After all, I guess it answers the fundamental question.
What is the internet?
The Great Idea to Connect Human Ideas
Well, what does it do?
It connects.
This post © Copyrite Duggeek, all rights reversed.
the Internet is a huge flying mechanical bird. Call me paranoid if you want.
Then is MySpace a model train wreck?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Whatever you do, don't show anyone Warriors of the Net: http://www.warriorsofthe.net/
Or maybe you should, everyone will enjoy the nap.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
The Internet enables any computer with an Internet address to send whatever information it would like to any other computer with an Internet address.
I've always found the post office metaphor quite suitable for the internet. You can even explain IP-addresses and protocol layers with it! (with address labels and envelopes inside envelopes.)
So an automated electronic post office it is. Except people might get anxious about mixing up the internet protocol and actual email.
Internet (or internetwork) is a network.
So... A series of boobs?
Elevator pitch
"The Internet" basically refers to the fact that our computers are all hooked up by some huge network designed to allow just about any computer to access just about any other computer. This network allows us to exchange information with each other, and there isn't just one way to do it.
"Before the Internet" we were connected by messengers, postal service, UPS/FedEx/etc, telephones, and books. These were all different ways we could communicate with each other indirectly (not face-to-face). With the Internet, we can send messages to other people (IM or e-mail) -- effectively an alternative for phone and mail, and we can write and publish or read material -- effectively an alternative to books, magazines, and newspapers.
Because you asked...
Just as nobody owns the "old ways of communicating" -- nobody ows the exclusive right to bring a package to your home or your business (with some exceptions, like first class mail), or the exclusive right to sell paper with words on them at a newstand -- nobody really owns the Internet (again with some exceptions). Just as we can take on any roles in "the real world" (a consumer, a producer of goods or entertainment, a business owner, a business-to-business business owner), we can take on whatever role we want on the Internet. We can simply use it to access information or we can become "business owners" and create sites that provide some sort of service to others, or we can contribute to the network by dragging wires (or wireless) to places the Internet hasn't reached.
N/T
"A series of tubes" isn't to daft a description (electricity, also flowing in wires, often has water pressure==voltage and current==flow rate as an analogy). The problem was everything else he said. Tubes empty themselves, trucks don't. Tubes leak/break (packet loss) far more often than trucks get stolen or break down explosively. Trucks also get delayed by too much traffic. Obviously there are flaws with the "tubes" analogy (like WiFi, which would have to be a magic invisible intangible tube that connects itself to your computer), but for the layman, it's not that bad.
goatse. Because you can always go from point A to point B, whether you want to or not.
C|N>K
... a place where you can find lots of music, tv series episodes and nude chix.
(Sorry, just couldn't resist. There goes my Karma...)
Er Galvão Abbott - IT Consultant and Developer
Okay I've been giving it some thought I think a great (hopefully humorous) way to describe the internet is :
The Internet is a Postal Service run by Cookie Monsters, where all the messages you send are written on cookies. The cookies are too small to hold all but the smallest of messages, so you have to send messages on multiple cookies (data packets). The post office tries to determine the most efficient route to get your cookie to its destination (routers, hops, etc.). Thing is, the Cookie Monsters spend long hours shuffling your messages around and sometimes get hungry and eat some of the cookies (packet loss). Depending on the importance of your messages, you may have to develop techniques to combat the possible eating of your cookies (TCP vs UDP, etc).
I've seen many posts trying to associate the Internet with highways and such, but I think the tagging and routing performed by the postal service might be a closer match. And nobody seems to address the idea of packet loss, i.e. the carrier just giving up on your packet and having it completely dissapear without warning or notice. That is why I chose a Postal Service run by Cookie Monsters.
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
that links computers together, which allows the sharing of information between said computers.
My apologies for the mispellings in the parent, especially in the title. Just goes to show that my tagline applies to all people, even its creator.
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
The internet is to computers like the air is to free speech.
Air does not care who or about what you want to communicate with others. It just transports the sound waves from you to others and vice versa.
That's the internet job for PC and devices as well.
shithole.
seriously, go through irc chatlogs or old BBS archives, or fanfiction, or 4chan.
and then look at all the fanbases, fetishes, and "subcultures" that exist online.
then the porn, and all the fucked up porn.
then myspace and yahoo chats and second life.
then look at games like WoW.
look at all the antisocial psychopaths online.
then weigh all that in with what's sane and normal.
The Internet means two main things.
1. As a thing, it is the worldwide network that interconnects almost all of the smaller networks run by corporations, governments, and even families.
2. As a standard, it denotes the set of rules that have been adopted by most network owners, thus allowing all their networks to talk to one another (and a huge variety of software applications to use those networks).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The internet is the truest form of Democracy the world has ever seen. It is a microcosm of society, with all its good and all its bad. Every voice is as relevant as the next and no-one gets preference; from paupers to presidents, simpletons to scholars, all can debate on the world stage of this epic public forum, and share knowledge in the greatest public library any of us will ever know.
Whether through tubes or lines; under sea of through the sky, the technicalities of the information exchange are accessible to all; there is no reason to be a laymen anymore, why would you want to be? It is the idea of the internet that has made it what it is: It is fair and harsh, dirty and beautiful; no better homage to humanity will exist, because for all of the lies and scandal it is laced with, no truer representation of 'us', the people, can happen. Because only on the internet are we all equal, and judged on our merits and contributions alone.
Peace out
If the internet is a bunch of tubes (carrying data), then I guess that'd make the PC that all the data pours into a bucket, right? Or maybe PC's are kitchen sinks that can both hold the water that might come rushing up the drain (yech), or source it from the tap?
It seems that in 2007 people CAN deal with the concept of "computer" rather than having to be told it's a bucket or sink. Most people are of course clueless about what's in a computer how it does what it does, but no moreso than they are about their TV or microwave oven.
So... I say call the internet a "network". People have them in the office, and can generally grok what they do - connect stuff up and transport data. So what if people are unaware of TCP/IP, SMTP, HTTP, routers, etc... they can still grasp the more abstract concept of network, and realize that it's not a tube anymore than a PC isn't a bucket.
The internet is like a sausage - except different...
The Internet is the largest possible computer network technology will allow. ...or a series of copper tubes...
"The Internet" is a set of rules that allow people to communicate using computers.
He just thinks the country is "going down the tubes!"
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
the Internet: the global-scale counterexample of the notion of "intellectual property".
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
"...Wires connecting a lot of computers."
Sooo, you're saying that the wirelessly connected computer I'm posting this from isn't on the internet?
Concept != implementation
I would define it as a global Interlinked network of computers, but I'm no rocket scientist....
In my Introduction to the Internet course, I tell people that the internet is basically made out of phone lines.
The purpose of a phone line is to carry information from point A to point B, and that's what the internet does. Furthermore, the internet uses largely the *same set* of phone lines that is also used when you make a phone call.
It's not all the same kind of residential phone line that you use at your house, of course. The phone companies have various types of lines, some of which can carry a lot more information that the basic line you use for one phone. They aren't all copper, either: there are fibre optic lines, satellite links, and so forth. And there's a lot of switching and routing equipment involved, connecting the various lines together.
But in principle it's pretty much phone lines.
Of course, when we call it "the internet" instead of just saying "phone lines", we usually mean that _computers_ are using the lines to exchange information. What's special about computers? They're flexible. A telephone can use the lines to send and receive one kind of information in exactly one way -- a phone call. A fax machine too can use the same lines to send and receive one kind of information in exactly one way -- a black and white image of a piece of paper with stuff on it. Computers, however, are general-purpose devices. Rather than having their one thing they can do hardwired into them, they are designed to read and follow sets of instructions (which we call "software"). Thus, by using different software, you can get the computer to do different things, so it can use the internet in different ways, to exchange different kinds of information.
(Then I talk about how email is like a letter or a phone call, in that it's person-to-person (generally); whereas, the web is more like a book or a newspaper or a magazine, in that someone publishes the content and then anyone can read it. Then most of the rest of the course is spent on the web.)
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Internet = 42
The Internet is a system that connects computers from all over the world. It is designed to make it so that even if individual computers go down, it does not make the entire internet available. Common uses of the Internet are e-mail, looking at web sites, digital phone conversations and exchanging computer files.
The Internet is the part of your computer that is non-local.
"Mostly harmless."
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
One of those Google definitions linked to in the original story says "The Internet is the biggest Internet in the world." I used to write TV News. Once, in the mid 90s, I wrote a story that mentioned the Internet. The producer changed it to "a computer network." I'm glad that doesn't happen anymore.
You are still using TWO WIRES :P
The internet is most of the computers of the world connected together. The internet is NOT the web. It is NOT email. Just like your computer is not MS Word. The web and email are things you can do with the internet just like word processing is something you can do with your computer.
I actually don't think that TCP/IP matters much in the definition of the internet anymore. Someday it is likely that we will adopt a new and hopefully improved protocol, and people will still call 'it' the internet.
-- QED
The internet is a medium for communication. Dare I say/requote "the medium is the message" -Marshall McLuhan.
How hard is this? The internet is a collection of connected computers. the "tubes" are irrelevant. My network cable is not the internet. My computer, however, is part of it.
A network is a collection of connected devices. An internet is the overall collection of all of the connected networks and devices. The Internet is the overall collection of electronic networks and devices using common networking protocols. Or, you could say that The Internet is all of the devices using IP networking (though I know that's nominally circular) that are connected in some way to the majority of other such devices. An Internet is what happens once networks become so ubiquitous that they aren't distinct from one another. It isn't a collection of ideas, or a movement, or a Zeitgeist. Those are roles that it happens to fill (or some think it does), not its definition.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
I think the root of what you are saying goes back to a fundamental difference between experts and decision makers. The experts job is to inform the deciders so that they can make an informed choice. Not every choice, that goes against the wisdom of the experts, is necessarily wrong. Often times experts have a narrow focus on their area of expertise, we often need to make decisions based upon the whole picture. If they deciders make a decision based upon incomplete knowledge, more often than not its because there has been a break down in communication between them and the experts. But, I as I wonder now, How do we improve that communication with out resorting to lobbyists?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It's just the phone, really.
Alot of the responses show thought and intelligence, but the essential point is being missed. We are talking about laymen. I think the majority of people don't really care what the internet is and the best approach to this is a good analogy. Like this one: Remember tin cans and string? For those don't know, take two tin cans, punch a hole in the bottoms and thread a string between the two. Stretch it tight and talk into one can while your friend holds the other to his ear. Magic! Voice transmission over string! Well the internet, from the users perspective at least, is little different. Imagine everywhere you go there are cans connected with string. Only the cans are special - they have displays and key boards, and they do fancy stuff like play games and balance your check book. And the strings are all those fiber cables and stuff. Who cares about who ties the knots and keeps the strings untangled (ISPs, DNS, routers, blah, blah). I just want my can to work when I need it. Cans and string. That's all it is.
no one can be told what the internet is. They must see it for themselves. No? How 'bout "A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will not find anywhere in the universe." Mostly harmless?
The internet is a network that facilitates communication between any two points on the network as if they were near each other.
The problem with Sen Stephens' description is the claim that it's not a big truck (implying that the internet could easily get clogged by too much data flowing through it).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
The internet is all things to all people. It is a friend, a lover, a teacher, an entertainer, a frustration, an escape, a supermarket, a community, a church, a workplace, etc. But mostly it is a source for porn, conspiracy theories and pictures of kittens.
Are you looking for a definition of the Internet, a description of the Internet or an analogy for the Internet? Those are three different things.
The definition is fairly easy: "The dominant global network of interconnected computers."
What's a good technical definition of a "Layman"???
THE INTERNET
Its fucking magic, that's what it is!
Shit goes in over here and comes out over there.
How it gets from here to there I haven't got the foggiest damn clue but its cool as hell and that's all I care and I know I want more of it.
But why can't my friend in Milwaukee send me a beer?
Thats what I really want to know.
The Internet - A general purpose wide area network composed of computers communicating with the IPv4 protocol at the network layer.
...to the "Information Super Highway?" This was the term I first heard when I read about the internet....you know, Al Gore invented it.
the Internet : global exchange of ideas :: air : talking
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
Internet (pron. in'-tur-net'') - n. - colloquial: teh internets
1. The worldwide decentralized system of networked computers and similarly enabled electronic devices linked together via various protocols which permit the transmission of packets of data from one device to any other or combinations of others, and whose system of data routing permits data to be transmitted over alternate linkages should elements of the network fail.
2. An experiment which has dismally answered the question, once and for all, of what would happen when you give just about every idiot in the world a megaphone.
The Internet is mass consciousness transcribed to a language-based or electronic form. It is both an extension as well as a representation of human intellect. It goes beyond being a mere mirror of global sentiment - in time it will represent, at least partially, an emerging understanding of a phenomenon increasingly known as collective, global or mass consciousness and thought. A good way to think of it is the collective thought of mankind presented both in real time and cumulative forms.
Now here's one iPoddy site! iPod Range
"Where porn comes from."
Everyone will know what you're talking about.
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
The Internet is a purely man-made Universe, typically accessed via computers, whose only limitation is man's own imagination.
The Internet is actually the sum of collective human thought, or mass consciousness, translated into a readable form, stored and transmitted electronically. If you think about it, its more than just electronic. It blurs the boundary between thought, words, and communication. It's global mass conciousness transcribed.
Now here's one iPoddy site! iPod Range
The Internet is the Universe's highest form of evolution to date (as far as Earth-bound humans can discern). It is the continuation of the exponential growth of information processing and awareness which began with the interactions of prebiotic compounds on up through the human brain and all of its inventions. The Internet is an emergent phenomenon which cannot be succinctly described as our minds truly are not capable of grasping what is truly happening at this next emergent level. As neurons in a brain are neither aware of nor can describe or understand the mind which emerges from their interactions, so too can human minds not be aware of nor can describe or understand the completeness of the Internet which emerges from their interactions. We, our personal computers, gadgets, and each processing node on the Internet can be likened as the Internet's relatively "dumb" neurons and it is the interactions of these elements that cause the emergence of something far beyond our comprehension. Sure, we created it, we use it, and it serves us, but when you think of the grand scale of the flow of information and the interactions of the cooperative parts it's not hard to analogize that our brains and many of its computing inventions have become the super smart neurons of an even bigger brain. Is the Internet aware? Does any one of your neurons know that you are aware, have emotions, hopes, and dreams... that you conceive of you self as a human, a live sentient being? Within these question lay the emergent mystery of what the Internet truly is. That said, if you're looking for a nuts and bolts description then I would say that the internet is a growing, boundless and massively parallel information processing system. Ooops! That leads directly back to the analogy: a brain is likewise a massively parallel information processing system, but... it is bounded--it only has so many neurons to work with. In contrast, the count of the Internet's higher-level "neurons" and processing capacity grows by the second. Not only that, but many of its secondary neurons (computers, gadgets, servers, switches, etc.) that where created by it's primary neurons (us) are growing in speed, capacity, and intelligence. These too will eventually create the next generation of Internet neurons that will be faster and better in all respects than its creators. The Internet is far more than what meets the human eye or even the human brain and will only continue to become more so. Therefore, the Internet is truly an enigma, albeit most commonly unrecognized as such.
The Internet is just like TV, only you have a lot more channels.
The Internet is just like a telephone, because sometimes you can talk back.
The Internet is just like a grocery store that offers delivery.
The Internet is just like a neighborhood graffiti wall, available to all who care to use it.
In short, the Internet is a way to interact with the world, without leaving your house.
Usually we, with our small computers, want something from the big ones. We either want to get information or store on them information. The party that begins the communication is called a client. The other party is called a server.
The Internet can be experienced in many ways. The web and e-mail is two most frequent ones, but they are not the only.
There are many reasons why a company would be interested to make information avaibale on the Internet. The most common one is projection. Some companies like Yahoo and Google have a profit of offering free services, like e-mail and web-search, because of advertising. It's not accurate but some innacuracy can save a ton of explenations (it's a famous quote)
The Internet is like the Interstate Highways. Except, instead of people in vehicles going to places, data in packets go to clients.
Have you read my journal today?
I prefer William Gibson's definition of /cyberspace/, from his novel "Neuromancer" (1984):
"A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts...A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light receding in the non-space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding..."
Not that this matches today's Internet, but we are getting closer...
The Internet is a technical means (how to share information - and it is why all definitions are so technical).
And it (the Interent) should not be taken for (understand as) the content which is available over this means.
[[See as example at a wiki and the Wikipedia - a technial means and the content hosted on it]]