How The Internet Works [INFOGRAPHIC]

Almost everyone nowadays uses the Internet. Stuff like Facebook, email, chat, Twitter and YouTube wouldn’t be there without the Internet. But while the web is so useful and easy to use these days only a few understand how it functions. If you have ever wondered about it, it’s time to find out. There is a nice infographic showing exactly how the Internet works.

How The Internet Works


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Aibek Esengulov

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  • Jeroonk August 1, 2010
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    Uhm, just pointing out a little mistake:
    The IP-address 123.456.789.012 is a impossible one.

    This is because IP-addresses are not just a string of digits separated by dots. They are actually 4 bytes, represented as [value of byte 1].[value of byte 2].[byte 3].[byte 4].
    Bytes can only store the values 0-255, thus IP-addresses only range from 0.0.0.0 trough 255.255.255.255.

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  • Vdbgdukbgd August 1, 2010
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    also don’t forget that that’s an ipv4 address and the internet is slowly switching to ipv6 (eg: 2001:252:0:1::2008:6)

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    • Aibek August 9, 2010
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      good point.

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  • Vdbgdukbgd August 1, 2010
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    other than some small errors and oversights this is great

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  • David King August 2, 2010
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    Are you sure you meant proctocol suite?

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  • Anonymous August 2, 2010
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    NAP isn’t “Network Access Protection” … It’s “Network Access Point” … and it isn’t a server

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    • Aibek August 9, 2010
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      apologies

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  • Anonymous August 2, 2010
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    Why does the makuseof logo look like something from mspaint?

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  • Wily August 2, 2010
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    Sorry but this is utter crap: “addresses are like names”? No, addresses are numbers. You then need the DNS to allow the use of names meaningful to humans. This “infographic” offers very little in the way the Internet actually works.

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  • P.K.ARUN August 2, 2010
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    Really nice infographic… thanks.

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  • JK III August 2, 2010
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    Can someone point me to list of countries with “no internet connection”? All I could find was countries where internet traffic is censored/regulated.

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  • zach August 4, 2010
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    I really don’t think the few mistakes on here are that big of a deal (though the impossible IP is a bit of a doozy, but the rest is fairly accurate). I’m a network engineer and I wish some of the people I worked with at least knew this much…. believe me. You gotta love getting calls saying “I can’t get to Google, is the internet down?”

    …. Yes, the entire World Wide Web is down.

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    • zach August 4, 2010
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      Oh and also, the TCP joke is great. “You down with TCP, yeah you know me.”

      UDP just makes it rain then leaves.

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      • mickey August 7, 2010
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        Zach, being more novice than not, i don’t get the TCP joke, can you explain it? thanks Mickey

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  • zach August 4, 2010
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    I really don’t think the few mistakes on here are that big of a deal (though the impossible IP is a bit of a doozy, but the rest is fairly accurate). I’m a network engineer and I wish some of the people I worked with at least knew this much…. believe me. You gotta love getting calls saying “I can’t get to Google, is the internet down?”

    …. Yes, the entire World Wide Web is down.

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  • zach August 4, 2010
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    Oh and also, the TCP joke is great. “You down with TCP, yeah you know me.”

    UDP just makes it rain then leaves.

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  • Anthony Calzadilla August 5, 2010
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    Pretty smart, If you click on the graphic you can see it was created by an organization that sells online education leads. High PR, 200K back links… pretty smart.

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  • Jkuhenbeaker August 7, 2010
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    I really like the shade of green you chose… and I cant find that hue in ms paint…WTF!

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  • Aibek August 9, 2010
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    thanks for pointing it out, it was a typo.

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  • Jose Benito August 11, 2010
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    Please, I need translate to Spanish, is posible? I see is very interesting.

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  • speller August 12, 2010
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    Ukraine is misspelled as “Ukrane”.

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    • Aibek August 12, 2010
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      thanks for heads up.

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