Simon Brooke wrote:
>
> What does IP stand for?
>
Internet Protocol. Its a rudimentary thing that lets you say "I want to send
this packet of data to this address (probably a computer)". Its so basic,
it doesn't even guarantee the packet of data will get there.
You build more complex things on top of it (TCP for example, Transfer
Control Protocol I think) to make more reliable connections. TCP adds
things like automatic retry if the packet of data doesn't get there, and
reassembling the original order if packets of data arrive out of sequence.
The World Wide Web is built on top of TCP. It generally uses TCP Port 80
(like a phone extension number in a big office block, with 65536 phone
points in it). The protocol is called HTTP for Hyper-Text Transfer
Protocol, and like many protocols is human readable. This means you can
debug it easily which is really handy. If you get hold of a packet sniffer
(I use Ethereal), you can see whats going on.
When you get a web page, your computer effectively phones up the other
computer (with an IP number, like 192.168.002.090), port 80, and says
something like
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host:
www.somewhere.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7) Gecko/20040704
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,blah de blah...
Accept-Language: en-gb,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Cookie: openwebmail-httpcompress=0
which means "get the page called "/" for the web site called
"www.somewhere.com". I'm Mozilla 5.0 etc etc. I like all these different
file types (and its a big list), in English please, compressed if you want,
and here's a cookie you gave me earlier."
The computer on the other end replies with the contents of the web page on
that site. An interesting point is that any computer attached to the
internet can serve web pages, unless your service provider gets in the way
by blocking the traffic. Its a peer to peer system, which really frightens
those used to control of how information is disseminated.
A lot of Internet stuff is complex things made out of basic things. HTTP is
built on TCP is built on IP. Mail (SMTP, on top of TCP, on top of IP) is as
simple and crude as IP, but you can build more complex things like secure
mail on top of it. Companies that have forgotten this make mistakes.
IP doesn't mean Intellectual Property at all, honest. This is just a new
buzzword that has started coming out of legal departments and seems to mean
"Whatever we can get our grubby little hands on, even if you didn't
previously think such a thing could even be owned. If it helps us make a
quick buck or squash any form of competition, all the better".
I suppose the theory is that if economies based on making and selling
tangibles are steadily declining, then we're going to have to start owning
intangibles. It doesn't seem good for small companies/people without big
legal departments, or for free competition if the basic ideas behind
something can be owned rather than just the details of a particular
implementation.
Imagine if MacDonalds owed the concept of fast food. No matter what you
think of their quality, they have to compete which means its better than it
could be. Someone owns the concept of sending music over the internet, even
though it was possible (music file over File Transfer Protocol) long before
that patent was granted. The owner of that patent didn't even have to
implement something. Its a method patent - an abstract concept.
Ownership of such an abstract concept is ludicrous anyway, and as a proof in
point, a recent sample simple online store was shown to infringe on 20 or
so different patents. If you were honest, and not an Intellectual Property
Thief at all, then setting up an online store would cost a fortune for all
of those license fees, never mind the cost of getting a lawyer to research
them for you.
The risk if you don't - the patent owner finds you and takes you to court.
They can charge what they want, or even close down your business - all for
using a basic idea that you thought was so obvious anyone could come up
with it, only someone did, and bought a patent for it.
Its a good job no-one patented HTTP above - or we'd have no World Wide Web,
and the Internet would have probably never taken off.
- Richard
--
_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Richard dot Corfield at ntlworld dot com
_/ _/ _/ _/
_/_/ _/ _/ Time is a one way street,
_/ _/ _/_/ _/_/_/ Except in the Twilight Zone.