Introduction

I'll attempt to explain the inside functions of the web. This process is vast and tends to get abstracted in one way or another. I'll try my best to remove some of that abstraction. The web's birth was in the labs of computer scientist Tim Berners Lee. He created a system to share information with memory addresses using html documents. The network he built consists of standardized protocols such as like http. Protocol to improve the web come from others alike. Everything in the web starts with radio waves.

What's the role of radio?

Interacting with the web requires an internet connection. The connection is wireless in modern times with the current state of technology and infrastructure. Your computer device while reading this blog is connected to wifi or cellular network with the help of the antenna in the hardware. The antenna emits radio waves in binary signals to the nearest router. The signal pattern will be sent to the modem with an ethernet cable where the signals will be modulated from digital to analog, or vice versa. In cellular connections, the antenna transmits the radio waves to it's zone's cell tower. Radio is essential for establishing wireless connection with our devices and all other data is transported through cables.

What is TCP and IP?

TCP is responsible for transporting data over the network. TCP is short for transmission control protocol while IP is short for internet protocol. TCP transports data by breaking data into chunks, also known as packets, and shipping them to their destination. Packets are the quintessential unit of data exchange on the internet and each packet will hold a source and destination IP similar to our real life mail. When all the packets reach their destination address they will be rearranged in the order of their sequence number which is assigned in the TCP process. IP serves to assign each device an internet address. The current IP version is IPv6 which means that IP addresses are 128 bits in size. The previous version, IPv4, was 32 bits in size. The new IP format was necessary due to the growth of the internet so more addresses spaces were required to hold the web. The internet in simplest terms is information linked to an address. IP addresses are hard to remember which brings forth the domain naming system. DNS maps IPs to their readable format such as google.com.

Requesting a domain will initiate a TCP/IP protocol. The first step is to establish connectivity between client and server. Connectivity is established with a round-trip of exchanges and this round trip is called the 3-step handshake. Once a connection is established, TCP can begin packaging and shipment of data. The TCP/IP web standards are enforced by a Internet Engineering Task Force.

What is HTTP?

HTTP protocol sends and receives resources from a server. To view this page an HTTP GET method is called. The server hosts an HTML document with the information and styling for the page. There are five widely used HTTP verbs. In the modern web, browsers require HTTPS support and the 'S' stands for SSL. SSL is used for data encryption in order to protect network connections.

Conclusion

The internet is complex and highly standardized. Having a curiosity for it is normal even among non-programmers. The internet will continue its evolution as infrastructure and technology advances, so expect this explanation to become outdated soon.

Thanks for reading!