WEBVTT - What's My Address? 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.960 Get text with technology with text Stuff from host efforts 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:16.360 dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.639 your host, Jonathan Strickland, and it's just me flying so 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.000 low today. And I thought I would take a look 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.640 at something that a lot of us deal with frequently, 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.400 but we often take for granted. So I wanted to 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.880 talk about web addresses specifically. I wanted to talk about 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:36.879 U r l s and how they make using the 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.120 web easier. But in order to do that, I need 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.879 to set some background first. So this is all going 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.720 to be very basic stuff, with the way the Internet 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.199 infrastructure works and the way the web works. But I 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.120 thought it was one of those things that once you 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:55.480 you have the realization of what's going on in the background, 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.000 you have a greater appreciation for things. So to get 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.200 the obvious out of the way, the Internet is a 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.240 network of computer networks. That's why it's called the Internet. 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.520 It's what allows your computer to communicate with other computers. 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.920 But in order for there to be any communication, you 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.560 have to have a couple of things. You need rules 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.920 that all the computers are going to abide by. You 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:22.600 need some sort of common language that all the different 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.839 types of computers can understand, because otherwise you would only 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.640 be able to receive information from similar machines as your own, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:37.000 because they all operate with different operating systems, using different 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.600 file types, that sort of thing. And you also need 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.920 a method for computers to know where to send a message, 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.920 because if you didn't have that, the Internet would just 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.600 be a bunch of computers shouting into the void, hoping 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:55.080 that the machine they are trying to reach, actually here's them, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:59.080 while simultaneously hoping that everyone else ignores them. And it 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.320 might seem like that's how things work in your typical 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:06.960 Internet forum, but that's not what's really going on. So 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.640 every device connected to the Internet has an Internet Protocol 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:16.040 address an i P address. Now, an IP address is 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.359 sort of like a phone number or a physical address. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.760 It's the number that includes the information needed for data 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.640 to arrive at that particular device. It tells the network 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.960 where that device is in the grand connection of the 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:34.760 network of networks. Using the old i P V four method, 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.600 the version four of the Internet Protocol, IP addresses have 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.280 a thirty two bit number. Now that creates a hard 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:48.280 limit for addresses, which is specifically four billion, two million, 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.920 nine D sixty seven thousand, two hundred ninety six of them. 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.799 Now of those, more than two million of them are 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:59.000 reserved for specific uses, and so you effectively have around 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:03.919 four billion addresses that could be assigned. An ip v 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.280 four address is represented by four groups of numbers. Those 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:12.239 range between zero and two, meaning they're two fifty six 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.959 total potential numbers for each one. And each of those 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.920 four groups of numbers is separated from the others by dots. 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.280 UH each of those numbers groups. They represent a group 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.679 of eight bits. So here's an example of an i 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.960 p v four i P address. It could be two 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.239 six dot to seven dot six one dot one three seven. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:38.320 That's just a random example, and four billion addresses sounds 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:43.119 like a bunch, But it didn't take that long for 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.040 those addresses to start getting scarce. The address pool was 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.600 exhausted in February of two thousand eleven. And you might 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.440 have heard some stories about how certain companies, like big 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.840 software companies UH that we're relying on I p v 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.280 four have had some issues running out of IP addresses 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.160 to assign to people on their networks. So they're folks 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.320 couldn't actually connect, and not just people but executives. We're 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.240 not having any luck connecting to the Internet because they 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.600 had run out of IP addresses to assign to their employees. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:17.680 It's one of the reasons there's been a big push 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.280 to move from I p V four to I p 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.640 V six, which uses eight bit numbers, not thirty two 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.960 bit numbers. So what does that actually mean? Well, if 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.119 you go with I p V six, there are three 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.200 point four oh three times ten to the thirty eight 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:38.000 power or two to the hundred and twenty eight power 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.400 addresses available in IPv six. Why am I putting the 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.279 number in those terms, Because to actually spell out the 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.640 number in full would probably take most of this podcast, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.880 and that would only be interesting for a few seconds. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:56.240 So how can we put into terms what that actually means. Well, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.440 there'd be so many addresses that even if you were 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.359 adding a huge number every pico second, it would probably 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:08.359 last until our son actually burns out. So I think 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.080 will be good in the long term when everyone switches over, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:17.719 will be in great shape until the sun burns out, 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.960 at which point will have other problems to worry about. Now, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.680 an I p V six address is a little more 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.800 complicated than the I p v for one, so uh, 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:30.880 if you were to look at one of these addresses. 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.320 An example would sound something like this to zero zero 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:40.200 one colon c d b A colon zero zero zero zero, 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:44.400 colon zero zero zero zero, colon zero zero zero zero, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.560 colon zero zero zero zero, colon three to seven, colon 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.760 n five to It is significantly longer, and now you 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:58.880 can actually simplify things by omitting the groups of zeros. 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.359 You don't have to include all of those. There is 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:05.760 a way of having shorthand to express that number, and 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.120 the way you do that is you drop the groups 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:12.520 of zeros, but you include an extra colon to signify 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.560 that there is no mission. So the long address I 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.600 mentioned just a bit ago could be shortened to two 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:23.799 zero zero one colon c d b A colon colon 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.719 three to seven colon to That double colon would represent 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.480 that everything in between those were just empty groups of zeros. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.479 So that's one way of shortening it. Now, your own 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.359 computer's IP address is not likely to stay the same 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:44.000 across multiple uses. Instead, receives an IP address from a 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:49.720 dynamic host configuration Protocol server that's on your network. The 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:53.040 server gives the network a bit more freedom because it 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:57.840 can shift IP addresses around whenever necessary. But other computers 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.400 on the network, like web servers, they have to have 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:04.919 the same IP address all the time because otherwise they 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:06.839 would just get lost in the cluttery. They would have 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.160 to consistently update all the registries to alert them of 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:15.160 their new IP address whenever they changed, or else any 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.680 incoming traffic would never find the server. So while your 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.040 personal computer might have an IP address one day and 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.880 a different one the next day, the web server that 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.680 you want to visit that has the website you are 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.200 interested in, is going to have the same IP address 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:34.840 day to day. They have what is called a static 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.240 IP address, so it's going to be assigned to that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.360 machine and only that machine. You'll never find another machine 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.400 with that same IP address, at least as long as 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.080 the original one is active. Now, the IP address is 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.120 associated with the media access control address for that specific 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:55.240 network interface on the server. Now, that's a MAC address. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.640 You probably have heard that term. You typically find the 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.800 MAC address written on a little sticker that tends to 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.720 be on these servers. Sometimes it has sometimes it's written 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.160 down in someone's notebooks somewhere. But that is what is 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.200 permanently associated with the static IP address. And this is 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.240 how the Internet keeps track of where everything is. It's 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:21.240 all machine readable language, but it's not really useful to humans. 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.440 It's not human readable. Most of us can't remember I 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.520 P addresses that easily, particularly once you start adding lots 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:30.960 and lots of websites. So if you had to remember 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.400 the IP address of every single web server that you 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.840 wanted to visit in order to, you know, access a 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.040 specific web page, after a while, you would find it 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.240 very difficult to keep them all straight. So we needed 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.520 to have a different means of accessing these things to 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:49.880 make it easier for people. And that method ends up 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:53.040 being one that can correspond to those IP addresses but 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.600 doesn't require us to remember the strings of numbers. And 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.599 that's where the u r L comes in. U r 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:03.560 L stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and that's what allows 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.280 us to use human language to reach the information we 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.040 want when using the web. And it consists of a 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.720 few different pieces, and all of these correspond to machine language, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.720 which the computers understand, uh, and it's important to be 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.440 able to match the two up. So the pieces that 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.520 make up a u r L. First, if you look 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.840 at a web browser and you're looking at the address 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.120 bar and you're looking at a specific web page. The 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.319 first thing you're probably going to see, depending upon the 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.360 browser and which version you're using, is the h T 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:36.360 t P colon slash slash prefix. Now that stands for 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:42.199 Hypertext Transfer Protocol. That little string of letters defines the 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:46.360 message format that tells the computer which sets of rules 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.120 to follow when exchanging information across the Internet. Because there 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.559 are lots of different sets of rules, different protocols, it 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:55.760 all depends upon what you are actually trying to do. 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:01.240 So there's the file Transfer Protocol which is FTP uh 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.760 and that's not the only other one. There's also ones 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.880 like the Internet Message Access Protocol or IMAP. But ht 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.120 P h T t P is the protocol we use 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:17.760 primarily in web browsers, that hypertext transfer protocol. Now the 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.480 middle bit of the web address, after the H T 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.040 t P colon slash slash it corresponds to the server 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.959 or group of servers you want to access within a 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.360 top level domain. Well, that means we need to learn 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.760 what a top level domain is. Uh So, if you're 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.640 wondering what domain name is, if you look at something 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.720 the the dot com part of your typical web address, 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.880 that is the domain name. Domain names generally tell you 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.400 something about the site you are visiting, so for example, 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:53.199 dot com suggests a commercial business, dot org is an organization, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.360 dot gov is government, dot m L is military. Different 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:59.920 countries have their own top level domains, like dot r 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:03.400 you as Russia, or dot UK is the United Kingdom, 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.679 but these have become a lot more fluid over the 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.160 last few years, particularly with the release of new top 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.199 level domains that really open the floodgates and make this 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.240 UH not quite as cut and dry as it was 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.360 when it first when the web was was brand new. 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.440 But that is your domain name or the domain name 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.400 of the site that you're trying to visit. So for www, 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.240 dot how stuff works dot com UH, dot com would 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:31.440 be the domain name, and how stuff works would be 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.880 the second level domain off of the dot com top 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:40.040 level domain, and Www indicates the host name the specific 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.960 machine inside that second level domain that contains the information 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.920 you want UH, And it's not always going to be Www. 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.360 That's the most common, but it's not always going to 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:54.280 be that. If you're looking at a long web address as, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.240 then there's a slash after that top level domain. So 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:01.400 maybe it was how stuff Works dot com h slash 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:06.520 and then another name there. Uh. Well, everything that follows 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:11.480 that slash after the top level domain, uh is a 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.680 reference to the directory in the file system that contains 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.320 the specific file you are interested in. So this is 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.360 just a means of organization. It's a way for the 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.760 computer to know where to look to pull the specific 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.000 file you want to look at. So remember that when 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.720 you're using a web browser and you're looking at a 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:32.840 web page, you're really looking at a file. And everything 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.959 that follows that that top level domain is just a 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.920 way of pointing the computer, the server to the specific 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.720 file you are interested in. So it sends it to 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.360 your browser and you can see it or experience it. However, 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.320 uh that maybe, So for that to work, you can't 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.439 have duplicate web addresses. Otherwise servers wouldn't know which machine 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.840 you actually wanted to contact. So you can't have two 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.640 different sites that both used www. Dot house, stuff works 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:08.280 dot com. But how do you prevent duplicates from happening? 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.800 How can you make sure that someone doesn't go out 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.640 and create a website that already uh you know, that 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.160 uses an address that's already in use. Well, that's why 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.400 there is a specific process you have to follow when 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:25.000 you establish a web address, and that process begins with 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:30.959 a registrar. Registrars are entities that are authorized to assign 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.280 host names under one or more top level domains like 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.480 dot com and dot org and that sort of stuff. 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:41.640 Registrars then register those names with inter in IIC, this 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.480 is a service a service rather under i CAN, I 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.800 CAN as an organization. The acronym stands for the Internet 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:54.079 Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, and i can's job 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.840 is to maintain order in all this chaos by overseeing 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.240 the root name servers, among other things. I CAN actually 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:03.640 has a lot of different responsibilities, but one of them 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.760 is to make sure that this system remains orderly. So 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.000 registration secures the web address for the server containing that 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.520 relevant information. No one else will be allowed to use 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.160 that web address, at least no one will be allowed 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:23.000 to use it legitimately. Uh So, anyone who uses www 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:25.920 dot house stuff works dot com should, in theory, go 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.280 straight to the house Stuffworks homepage and nowhere else. I'll 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:32.480 talk about an exception to this a little bit later, 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:37.280 but it involves something hinky. So how does the Internet 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.560 know which computer you need to contact when you type 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.960 in the web address in human language, because like I said, 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.520 it's human language, not machine language. Machines don't read human 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.880 language the way we do, at least not natively. You 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.360 can build in natural language algorithms that can parse language 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.400 and understand in a way or at least mapp in 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.680 a way what that language means, and then respond to it. 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.800 But that's not the way machines typically communicate. So the 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.000 way machines do this is through the Domain Name system 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.320 or DNS. Now, in the early days of the Internet, 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.000 there was no DNS. The Network Information Center maintained a 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.560 text file that had web addresses mapped to i P addresses. So, 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.840 in other words, if you had a web address back 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.320 in those early early days of the Internet we're talking 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:34.440 pre then your web address appeared in this text file 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.200 and was corresponding. You know, it corresponded to the actual 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.880 i P address of the web server that contained that 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:45.240 web page. So if you had a website at that time, 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:49.760 then it would be inside this text file. But as 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:53.640 you probably can imagine, this text file got really big, 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.320 really quickly as more and more entities started jumping on 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.480 the Internet and and putting web pages on the Internet. 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.040 This text file grew to an unmanageable size, so it 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:08.440 was inefficient to keep a single text document as the reference. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.479 It was taking too long to cross reference web addresses 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.240 to IP addresses. It was actually increasing the amount of 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:16.920 time it would take for you to go to a 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.840 website through your browser because it was just taking too 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.120 long to resolve the web address name. So that's when 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.240 the University of Wisconsin formed the Domain Name System and 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.360 it automatically maps web addresses to IP addresses. So when 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.680 you type in an address, your request goes out over 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.880 your network the Internet service provider that you use UM 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:46.640 it goes over their network to their domain name server. Now, 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.840 not every computer on the domain name system has every 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:53.760 web address and IP address stored in it. It would 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.080 be crazy if they did. So you type in a 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.440 web address, it goes out over your Internet service provider's 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.720 network to the DNS server. UH. It consults its registry 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.399 to see if it in fact has the information needed, 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.440 and if it doesn't, it works with the other servers 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.720 on the d n S to find that information send 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.040 it to your computer so that it can contact the 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:22.360 appropriate web server and get the file that it wants. So, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.240 if you're using a browser to look up a web page, 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.480 your request goes to the d n S and that 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.439 sends the IP address of the appropriate server once it's 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.720 identified it to your browser. Your browser then essentially sends 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.280 a request to the web server that has that particular 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.840 page that file and says, hey, can I see that? 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:46.600 And the web server, assuming everything is on the up 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.000 and up, says, of course you can, and sends the 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.639 file like the web page to your browser and uh, 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.040 you know, travels through the network in this way. It's 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:59.520 not it's not a direct pathway from the server to 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.560 your computer necessarily, and then it shows up in your browser. Now, 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.879 all this stuff happens in fractions of a second. Um. 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:09.840 Sometimes it can take a little longer depending upon the 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.640 stats of the network and the amount of traffic involved. 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.960 But it's still an incredibly fast process to especially when 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.719 you consider how much is actually going on here with 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.480 all the cross referencing. To go from web address address 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:28.040 to IP address to sending the signal to responding to it, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:38.200 it's amazing. Now, I've got a couple of other things 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.800 I wanted to mention. One of those is why are 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:47.120 so many web addresses written in English. Now not all 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:49.040 of them are, and in fact, this has changed quite 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.239 a bit over the last few years. But for a 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:55.879 long time, English was the dominant language in web addresses, 0:18:55.920 --> 0:19:00.159 even web addresses that were in other countries, uh that 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:04.119 don't use English as their primary language. And the reason 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.920 is pretty you know, well, pretty cut and dry. Really, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.720 it's because the people who developed the standards we use 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:17.000 for creating web addresses, we're mostly English speaking Americans, so 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:22.040 um or English speaking natives, whether it was of America 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:27.120 or other countries. Now. Uh. The people who established those 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.320 rules included Tim Burners Lee, who worked for CERN and 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.920 was what we consider the the inventor of the Worldwide Web. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:39.280 He designed the first web page, and then the Internet 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.679 Engineering Task Force or i e t F. They established 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.720 the set of standards for web addresses in and in 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.840 setting up the standards, the i e t F limited 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:54.000 web addresses to upper and lowercase Latin letters, in other words, 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.399 the letters that appear in the English alphabet. And you 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.000 could also use digits from zero to nine, and also 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.200 a few symbols, not all of them, but a few 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.080 of them. And if you spoke English, you you happen 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.240 to have an English keyboard, a keyboard that had Latin 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.000 alphabetical letters on it, that was okay, But if you 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.360 have to live in one of those countries that doesn't 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.760 use the Latin alphabet, it made using the web more difficult. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.640 So for you folks out there using English keyboards such 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:28.159 as myself, imagine if instead the Internet relied upon a 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.879 different alphabet, like an Arabic alphabet or a Cyrillic alphabet, 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:37.240 and you only had the English alphabet or Latin alphabet 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.679 to work with, it would be much harder for you 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.520 to navigate the web. You would have to possibly use 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.840 either you know, a mapping system, so that's mapping English 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.080 or Latin letters rather to these other alphabets, or you 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.920 might have to insert the letters one by one using 0:20:54.560 --> 0:21:00.479 the insert um uh option. It's not the easiest thing 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.920 in the world to do um So that was one 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.840 of the drawbacks to the Web for many years, and 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.440 it wasn't until two thousand nine that i CAN approved 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.680 the use of internationalized domain names. That meant that Web 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:20.120 addresses could finally include non English characters in them. And coincidentally, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.560 perhaps two thousand nine was also the year that the 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.879 United States government gave up control of i CAN and 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:32.760 they transitioned it to a multi stakeholder governance model. And 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.440 you might wonder what that means. It's it's essentially i 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.679 CAN is a nonprofit organization and it only answers to 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.040 stakeholders rather than having to answer to the United States government. 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.720 And you might wonder why it was i CAN ever 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:46.760 answering to the U. S Government in the first place. 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:51.600 But keep in mind, the Internet itself is essentially the 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:56.399 product of a US government project. It all started back 0:21:56.480 --> 0:22:00.000 with ARPA back in those days, it wasn't even DARPA yet, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:05.800 with our PA net, which established the general structure and 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.639 protocols that would be used later and evolve into the 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.640 ones that we use for the Internet. So the United 0:22:12.680 --> 0:22:17.359 States was very heavily involved in the construction and the 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:21.040 standardization of the Internet, which is why things are the 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:25.080 way they are now. Besides non Latin characters, you are 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:30.200 els can now also contain emojis, those little symbols that 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:33.000 mean all sorts of stuff. These days. Used to be 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.359 just being smiley and frowny faces and winky faces, but 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:38.320 now it's all sorts of stuff. And we've seen a 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.879 couple of different examples of this, Coke launched an ad 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.360 campaign that used a single emoji Internet address, and recently 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.320 Norwegian Airlines did this for a special announcement they were 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.880 launching direct flights from Copenhagen to Las Vegas. So there 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:58.959 you are. L was www dot Airplane, Emoji slot Machine, 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:07.040 Emoji money, emoji dot w S, which is adorable and maddening. 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.439 Um so this could lead to a new era of 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.080 emoji u r l's aimed at people younger than I am, 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:17.600 so get off my lawn. Okay, But seriously, this actually 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:19.879 does sound like a pretty nifty idea to mean. The 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:23.239 limitation really is that unless you have a device that 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:27.119 has the emojis available, it makes it harder to access 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.679 these sites, at least harder to access them directly. You 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.800 could still get there through other means, like a direct 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:37.119 link from another site or search results from a search 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.679 engine like Google. But maybe it's not a big deal anyway, 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.160 because I mean, how many people actually bother to type 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:46.560 in the web address for the websites they are going to? 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.600 Besides me? I know I do it. Maybe some of 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:51.639 you out there do it a lot too. But in 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:54.280 my mind this is very similar to the limitations we 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:59.560 saw when we could only use Latin alphabetical figures or 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:03.480 character is rather when typing in web addresses. It's it's 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:05.960 very similar to that because if you don't have a 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.400 smartphone or other device that has these emojis that are 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:13.840 built into it, you then have to construct them some 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:16.240 other way. So I imagine most of these web addresses 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:20.439 will have a language variant of them, not just the 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.240 emoji ones. All right, So we've got a couple of 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.720 other things we need to cover before I can wrap 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.520 up here. One of those is what about you are 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:33.840 l shorteners? So these are techniques that redirect traffic to 0:24:33.960 --> 0:24:38.719 a domain name by using a short string to conserve characters. So, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:41.359 in other words, instead of having a long web address, 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:44.520 you might have a much shorter one. Sometimes the shorter 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.080