Internet Acronyms
By Jeff Prosise of PC Magazine

Confused by the latest spate of Internet-related acronyms flooding the computer industry? You're not alone. There are so many unexplained acronyms that understanding them is like trying to communicate in a foreign country when you don't know the language and have forgotten your translator. To help you feel more at home, here is a concise explanation of some common Internet acronyms from ADSL to WWW. Don't be caught off guard the next time an Internet guru throws the latest jargon at you. Instead, be prepared. Learn the language ahead of time so you don't feel out of place when terms such as ICMP and PPTP are being thrown around.

ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) A digital phone-line technology that supports high-speed connections to the Internet using ordinary copper telephone wires. Proffered by AT&T as an ISDN replacement for Web surfers, ADSL is "asymmetric" because uplink speeds (64 Kbps) differ markedly from down-link speeds (up to 6 Mbps). ADSL is currently available only in selected markets.

ARP (Address Resolution Protocol’s) protocol that translates Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses (for example,128.10.3.42) into physical network addresses. One of the many members of the TCP/IP protocol suite, ARP is a key player in the process that allows a packet of data addressed to a particular Internet host to find its destination. See also DNS, RARP, and TCP/IP.

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) A means for transferring information that users have typed into forms found on Web pages to scripts or programs run on a Web server, and vice versa. Two of the most common uses for CGI are performing database queries in response to user input and creating dynamic Web pages by assembling HTML data on the fly. The most popular language for writing CGI programs is Perl.

COOKIE A cookie is a technical term for a piece of information that's sent by a web server (such as ad.linkexchange.com) to a browser (such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) and then back again from the browser to the web server. Even though there really isn't much to cookies, they allow you to do some really neat things like:

DNS (Domain Name Service) The online database that correlates Internet IP addresses (for example, 128.10.3.42) to human-readable domain names such as pcmag.com. The database isn't stored on any one computer; rather, it's distributed among thousands of name servers spread throughout the Internet.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) A document with answers to you guessed it-frequently-asked-questions. FAQs are widely available online and cover a broad spectrum of topics ranging from gourmet cooking to the inner workings of TCP/IP.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) A widely used TCP/IP protocol for transferring files from one machine to another. Internet users may use FTP applications to log in to FTP servers and download files. No restrictions are placed on file contents; they may contain text or binary data. Files may be protected from unauthorized access using authentication control, or they can be made public with anonymous FTP which doesn’t require a login name or password. See also TFTP

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) A text-based page description language that uses tags to describe formatting idioms and allows richly formatted documents to be created using everyday text editors. HTML is the language used to create Web pages. See also HTTP and VRML.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) The text-based protocol that serves as the official language of the World Wide Web. HTTP defines high-level commands, or methods-such as GET and PUT-that browsers use to communicate with Web servers. The GET command requests a page of HTML data, a .GIF file, or other resource from a Web server in preparation for displaying it in a browser window. See also HTML.

ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) The TCP/IP protocol used to send control and error information regarding IP datagram transmissions. When an IP datagram cannot be delivered to its destination, perhaps because the machine at the destination is temporarily out of service or message traffic is too heavy, a router may use ICMP to notify the sender of the failure. See also IP.

IGMP(Internet Group Management Protocol) The TCP/IP protocol that permits Internet hosts to take part in IP multicasting-an efficient means of broadcasting messages to groups of computers.

InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) The administrative organization that is responsible for, among other things, allocating domain names and distributing RFCs. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the InterNIC is currently run by Network Solutions and AT&T. See also RFC.

IP (Internet Protocol) The protocol responsible for transmitting packets of data over the Internet and routing them to their destinations. Tagging a packet with an IP address identifying an Internet host and transmitting it using IP is analogous to addressing an envelope and dropping it in the mail. IP plays the role of post office, allowing the networks and routers involved in the delivery process to talk to each other as the packet finds its way to the addressee. See also TCP, TCP/IP, and UDP.

ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) A digital telephone network that transmits data in digital form (1's and 0's) rather than analog form. Provided it's available in your area, ISDN is a quick and convenient way to access the Internet from your home or small office at speeds of up to 128 Kbps.

ISP (Internet Service Provider) A company, usually a local one, that provides connections to the Internet for a monthly or hourly fee.

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) A protocol for sending non-ASCII data-for example, sound, video, and graphics over the Internet using text-based transport protocols such as SMTP. See also POP and SMTP.

NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) The protocol used to transmit Usenet messages across the Internet.

PING (Packet Internet Groper) A TCP/IP application used to determine whether other machines are online and available. Pinging is performed by sending an ICMP echo request waiting for a reply. See also ICMP.

POP (Post Office Protocol) The text based protocol used to send and retrieve Internet e-mail messages. Unlike SMTP, which is used primarily to transfer mail messages between mail servers, POP provides a way for mail programs to interact with the virtual mailboxes in which messages wait until they are sent or retrieved. POP comes in two flavors: POP2 and POP3. The two are related in name only and are not compatible. See also SMTP.

PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol) The most popular protocol for establishing dial-up connections to the Internet. PPP is similar to but more robust than

SLI, which lacks support for data compression, error detection, and multiple protocols on a single line. PPP resolves all these deficiencies and more. See also PPTP and SLIP.

PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) An enhanced form of PPP that uses "tunneling"- encapsulating packets of data written for one network protocol inside packets used by another to allow TCP/IP data to be transmitted over non-TCP/IP networks. The most common use for PPTP is to join physical networks together to form "virtual internets" using the Internet as a go-between. See also PPP.

RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol) The Internet protocol that permits a physical network address (for example, a 48-bit Ether-net address) to be translated into an IP address by sending a request to an RARP server. This protocol is used by diskless workstations to determine their own IP addresses at startup. See also ARP.

RFC (Request for Comments) An online document containing proposals, standards, and other information regarding Internet technologies. RFCs are available by anonymous FTP from a variety of locations, including InterNIC's own ds.internic.net. They may also be requested by e-mail (mailserv@ds.intemic.com) or by phone (800-444-4345).

SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) A widely used but somewhat outdated protocol for establishing dial-up connections to the Internet. Technically speaking, SLIP is a packet-framing protocol that defines how IP datagrams (packets of data transmitted over the Internet using IP) are packaged for transmission over serial data lines-for example, over a seriallink between your modem and an Internet service provider. See also IP, PPP, and PPTP.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The text-based TCP/IP protocol used to exchange mail messages on the Internet. A simplified version of the earlier MTP (Mail Transport Protocol), SMTP defines the format and content of transactions between mail servers. See also MIME and POP.

T1 A leased line that provides high-speed 1.544-Mbps (megabit per second) connections to the Internet. Typically available in large-company and university settings. Also known as "Web Surfer's Heaven."

T3 A leased line that provides ultra-high-speed 45-Mbps connections to the Internet.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) The TCP/IP protocol that provides reliable stream delivery service to Internet applications. Using TCP, an Internet client can open a virtual connection to another Internet client and transmit streams of data. Unlike its counterpart, UDP, the TCP protocol ensures reliable delivery by retransmitting lost and corrupted data packets. It also guarantees that an application on the receiving end of a TCP connection will receive bits and bytes in the same order in which they were sent. See also UDP.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) A suite of networking protocols that includes TCP IP UDP ARP RARP, and ICMP, to name just a few. Often referred to as the "the glue that binds the Internet," TCP/IP allows disjoint, dissimilar, and spatially separated physical networks to be joined together to form one large virtual network, or "internet." For more detailed discussion of TCP/IP, see the Tutor column "A Beginner's Guide to TCP/IP" in the November 19,1996, issue of PC Magazine.

TFTP (Trivial File Transfer Protocol) A simplified version of FTP that lacks the authentication services FTP provides and relies on UDP rather than TCP for data transport. TFTP is less complex and easier to program than FTP. See also FTP.

UDP (User Datagram Protocol) The TCP/IP protocol that allows packets of data, or datagrams, to be sent from one Internet application to another. UDP is a "connectionless" protocol, because, unlike TCP, it does not require the sender and receiver to establish connection before data is transmitted. It's considered "unreliable," because it doesn't guarantee that datagrams will arrive in the same order they were sent, or even that they will arrive at all. If reliability is desired, it's up to the application using UDP to provide it. See also TCP.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) A human-readable string that identifies the location of a resource on the Internet (for example, a page of HTML data or a .GIF file) and the protocol used to retrieve it. The URL for a document published by the World Wide Web Consortium that describes the format of URLs is http://www.w3.orglpub/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html

VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) The 3-D counterpart to HTML, VRML is a scriptlike language that permits rich 3-D scenes to be described in simple text files and displayed in VRML-capable Web browsers. VRML solves the problem of the high bandwidth required to transmit bitmapped scenes by minimizing the flow of information from the Web server to the browser and allowing the browser to render the scene-and thus do the bulk of the work required to display the scene-locally. See also HTML.

WWW (World Wide Web) A virtual world formed by Internet HTTP servers containing richly formatted pages that can be downloaded upon request to browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. It is more commonly known as "the Web." It was the creation of this network in 1994 (and the proliferation of browsers that followed soon after) that made Internet a household word. See also HTML, HTTP, and VRML.

Jeff Prosise is a contributing editor PC Magazine.
Page 208 PC MAGAZINE MAY 27,1997


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