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Sending and receiving of data on the Internet is made possible by two protocols: TCP and IP. TCP, is the Transmission Control Protocol; it splits data up into packets and puts them back together at their destination. IP, the Internet Protocol, tells the packets where to go and where they should return to.
The internet makes it possible for
one computer in one place to talk to
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another computer in a completely different
place, but it hasn't always been this way.
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in the mid 1970's and
early 1980's, the set
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of protocols that enables computers to
talk to each other was being developed.
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The sending and
receiving of data on the internet
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was made possible by two protocols,
TCP and IP.
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TCP is the transmission control protocol
and it splits data up into packets and
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puts them back together
again at their destination.
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IP, the internet protocol,
tells the packets where to go and
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to where they should return.
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Let's see what this looks like.
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The things you get from the internet,
like an HTML page or a YouTube video, and
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the things you send over the internet,
like an e-mail to a friend, are all data.
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In order for
data to be sent over the internet,
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it needs to be broken into packets.
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A packet isn't an entire web page,
or even usually a whole e-mail.
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It's a small chunk of data,
like a puzzle piece of the whole picture.
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By breaking data into these small,
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manageable chunks, many users can transmit
data at the same time very quickly.
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In essence, these packets are a way
of sharing access to the network, so
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that no single transmission
dominates the pipeline.
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The TCP/IP Protocol Suite is responsible
for creating packets, making sure they get
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where they need to go, and putting them
back together again at their destination.
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If something gets lost along the way,
TCP will request the packets to be resent.
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The directions on how to accomplish
this are written in a header and
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wraps every TCP packet.
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Once TCP makes a packet and wraps it
with header, the packet is handed off
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to the next layer which will handle
the details of how to transmit the data.
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Now every computer on the internet can be
identified by its own unique number called
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an IP address, and the IP protocol uses
IP addresses to route the TCP packets.
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In order to transmit the data to
the correct location, the IP protocol
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also adds a small header of information
to the packet, just like TCP.
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The IP header contains information
on how to send the packets,
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such as the source IP address and
the destination IP address.
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Now, because packets often travel through
a number of routers on their way to their
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final destination,
to make this process really fast,
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each packet is designed
to work independently.
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This means that each packet can
travel from router to router in
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the fastest way possible
to reach its destination.
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When all the packets are received,
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TCP will reassemble them, making sure
they're all there and in the right order.
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Now that we understand a little bit
more about how the TCP/IP Protocols get
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data from one place to another, let's find
out about the other pieces of hardware and
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software used to bridge
the distance between computers.
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