WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: What's My Address? 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.360 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.400 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.200 and how the tech are you? It's time for a 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:25.040 tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally published on June 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.920 twenty nine, two thousand fifteen. It is titled What's My Address? 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.680 It's all about Internet addresses and network addresses and why 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.680 those are important. Let's sit back and listen. So to 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.920 get the obvious out of the way, the Internet is 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:45.120 a network of computer networks. That's why it's called the Internet. 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.440 It's what allows your computer to communicate with other computers. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.800 But in order for there to be any communication, you 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.440 have to have a couple of things. You need rules 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:58.800 that all the computers are going to abide by. You 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.520 need some sort of common language that all the different 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:05.720 types of computers can understand, because otherwise you would only 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.520 be able to receive information from similar machines as your own, 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.920 because they all operate with different operating systems, using different 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:20.479 file types that sort of thing. And you also need 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.839 a method for computers to know where to send a message, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.840 because if you didn't have that, the Internet would just 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.520 be a bunch of computers shouting into the void, hoping 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.679 that the machine they are trying to reach actually hears them, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.000 while simultaneously hoping that everyone else ignores them. And it 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.200 might seem like that's how things work in your typical 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:45.880 Internet forum, but that's not what's really going on. So 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:51.240 every device connected to the Internet has an Internet Protocol address, 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.200 an I p address. Now, an IP address is sort 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.520 of like a phone number or a physical address. It's 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.800 the number that includes the information needed for data to 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.200 arrive at that particular device. It tells the network where 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:09.359 that device is in the grand connection of the network 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.600 of networks. Using the old i p v four method, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.520 the version four of the Internet Protocol, IP addresses have 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.160 a thirty two bit number. Now that creates a hard 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:27.200 limit for addresses, which is specifically four billion, two million, 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.120 nine d sixty seven thousand, two hundred ninety six of them. Now. 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.160 Of those, more than two million of them are reserved 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.240 for specific uses, and so you effectively have around four 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.840 billion addresses that could be assigned. An i p v 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.200 four address is represented by four groups of numbers. Those 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.120 range between zero and two fifty five, meaning they are 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.320 two hundred fifty six total potential numbers for each one 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:57.640 and each of those four groups of numbers separated from 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:02.400 the others by dots. Each of those numbers groups they 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.280 represent a group of eight bits. So here's an example 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.600 of an ip v four IP address. It could be 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.280 two one six dot to seven dot six one dot 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:15.760 one three seven. That's just a random example, and four 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:20.720 billion addresses. Sounds like a bunch, but it didn't take 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.760 that long for those addresses to start getting scarce. The 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.440 address pool was exhausted in February of two thousand eleven. 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.480 And you might have heard some stories about how certain companies, 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:37.400 like big software companies UH that we're relying on I 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.360 p v four have had some issues running out of 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.240 IP addresses to assign to people on their networks, so 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.560 they're folks couldn't actually connect, and not just people but executives. 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.920 We're not having any luck connecting to the Internet because 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:53.720 they had run out of IP addresses to assign to 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.040 their employees. It's one of the reasons there's been a 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:58.760 big push to move from i p v four to 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.840 i p v six, which uses eight bit numbers, not 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:07.680 thirty two bit numbers. So what does that actually mean? Well, 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.720 if you go with I p V six, there are 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.880 three point four oh three times ten to the thirty 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.320 eight power or two to the hundred and twenty eight 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:19.719 power address is available in I p V six. Why 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.760 am I putting the number in those terms because to 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.200 actually spell out the number in full would probably take 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.360 most of this podcast, and that would only be interesting 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:33.279 for a few seconds. So how can we put into 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.000 terms what that actually means? Well, there'd be so many 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.080 addresses that even if you were adding a huge number 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.760 every pico second, it would probably last until our son 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:48.719 actually burns out. So I think will be good in 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.359 the long term when everyone switches over, will be in 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:57.520 great shape until the sun burns out, at which point 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.159 will have other problems to worry about. Now, an I 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.680 p v six address is a little more complicated than 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.120 the I p V four one. So uh, if you 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.840 were to look at one of these addresses, an example 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.159 would sound something like this. To zero zero one, colon 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:19.560 c d b A, colon zero zero zero zero, colon 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.640 zero zero zero zero, colon zero zero zero zero, colon 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.480 zero zero zero zero, colon three to five seven, colon 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:32.640 nine six five to It is significantly longer. Now you 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.800 can actually simplify things by omitting the groups of zeros. 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.279 You don't have to include all of those. There is 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:44.640 a way of having shorthand to express that number, and 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.040 the way you do that is you drop the groups 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:51.400 of zeros, but you include an extra colon to signify 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.479 that there is no mission. So the long address I 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.520 mentioned just a bit ago could be shortened to two 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.880 zero zero one colon c E d B A colon 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:07.240 colon three to seven colon two. That double colon would 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.440 represent that everything in between those were just empty groups 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.880 of zeros. So that's one way of shortening it. Now. 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:17.720 Your own computer's IP address is not likely to stay 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:22.680 the same across multiple uses. Instead receives an IP address 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:27.760 from a dynamic host configuration Protocol server that's on your network. 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.839 The server gives the network a bit more freedom because 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.920 it can shift IP addresses around whenever necessary, But other 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.120 computers on the network, like web servers, they have to 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.719 have the same IP address all the time because otherwise 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.640 they would just get lost in the cluttery. They would 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.800 have to consistently update all the registries to alert them 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.359 of their new IP address whenever they changed or else. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:58.360 Any incoming traffic would never find the server. So while 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:01.839 your personal computer might have an IP address one day 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.559 and a different one the next day, the web server 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.400 that you want to visit, that has the website you 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.400 are interested in, is going to have the same IP 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.200 address day to day. They have what is called a 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:17.000 static IP address, So it's going to be assigned to 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.920 that machine and only that machine. You'll never find another 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.080 machine with that same IP address, at least as long 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.600 as the original one is active. Now, the IP address 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.480 is associated with the media access control address for that 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:34.160 specific network interface on the server. Now, that's a MAC address. 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.560 You probably have heard that term. You typically find the 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.720 MAC address written on a little sticker that tends to 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.800 be on these servers. Sometimes it sometimes it's written down 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.640 in someone's notebooks somewhere. But that is what is permanently 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.400 associated with the static IP address, and this is how 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.320 the Internet keeps track of where everything is. It's all 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.960 machine readable language, but it's not really useful to human 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.360 it's not human readable. Most of us can't remember I 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.440 P addresses that easily, particularly once you start adding lots 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.880 and lots of websites. So if you had to remember 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.320 the IP address of every single web server that you 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.760 wanted to visit in order to, you know, access a 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.960 specific web page. After a while, you would find it 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.160 very difficult to keep them all straight. So we needed 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.440 to have a different means of accessing these things to 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.800 make it easier for people. And that method ends up 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:31.920 being one that can correspond to those IP addresses but 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:34.520 doesn't require us to remember the strings of numbers. And 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.400 that's where the u r L comes in. U r 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:42.320 L stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and that's what allows 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.040 us to use human language to reach the information we 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.840 want when using the web. And it consists of a 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.520 few different pieces, and all of these correspond to machine language, 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.520 which the computers understand, uh, and it's important to be 0:08:55.559 --> 0:08:58.240 able to match the two up. So the pieces that 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.320 make up a u r L. First, if you look 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:02.640 at a web browser and you're looking at the address 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.920 bar and you're looking at a specific web page, the 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:08.120 first thing you're probably going to see, depending upon the 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.120 browser and which version you're using, is the h T 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.160 T P colon slash slash prefix. Now that stands for 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:20.960 Hypertext Transfer Protocol. That little string of letters defines the 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.120 message format that tells the computer which sets of rules 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.920 to follow when exchanging information across the Internet. Because there 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.360 are lots of different sets of rules, different protocols, it 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:34.520 all depends upon what you are actually trying to do. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:40.040 So there's the file Transfer Protocol, which is FTP UH 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.560 and that's not the only other one. There's also ones 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.600 like the Internet Message Access Protocol or IMAP. But ht 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.920 P h T t P is the protocol we use 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:56.560 primarily in web browsers. That hypertext transfer protocol now the 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.280 middle bit of the web address after the H T 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.800 t P colon slash slash. It corresponds to the server 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.680 or group of servers you want to access within a 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.160 top level domain. Well, that means we need to learn 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.560 what a top level domain is. Uh So, if you're 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.440 wondering what domain name is, if you look at something 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.520 the the dot com part of your typical web address, 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.640 that is the domain name. Domain names generally tell you 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.199 something about the site you are visiting, So for example, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:32.000 dot com suggests a commercial business, dot org is an organization, 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.840 dot gov is government, dot m i L is military. 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:38.600 Different countries have their own top level domains like dot 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:42.200 RU as Russia or dot UK is the United Kingdom. 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:44.439 But these have become a lot more fluid over the 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.959 last few years, particularly with the release of new top 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.960 level domains that really open the floodgates and make this 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.000 UH not quite as cut and dry as it was 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.160 when it first when the web was was brand new. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.199 But that is your domain name or the domain name 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.199 of the site that you're trying to visit. So for www, 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:08.040 dot how stuff works dot com, uh, dot com would 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.240 be the domain name, and how stuff works would be 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.679 the second level domain off of the dot com top 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.840 level domain, and Www indicates the host name the specific 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.719 machine inside that second level domain that contains the information 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.679 you want UH. And it's not always going to be Www. 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:29.160 That's the most common, but it's not always going to 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.320 be that. If you're looking at a long web address 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.840 as then there's a slash after that top level domain, 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:40.199 so maybe it was how stuff works dot Com slash 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:45.320 and then another name there UH. Well, everything that follows 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:50.280 that slash after the top level domain UH is a 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:53.480 reference to the directory in the file system that contains 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.120 the specific file you are interested in. So this is 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:01.120 just a means of organization. It's a way for the 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.520 computer to know where to look to pull the specific 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.800 file you want to look at. So remember that when 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:08.480 you're using a web browser and you're looking at a 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.640 web page, you're really looking at a file and everything 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.760 that follows that. That top level domain is just a 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:19.679 way of pointing the computer, the server to the specific 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.480 file you are interested in. So it sends it to 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.040 your browser and you can see it or experience it. However, 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.640 uh that may be. So for that to work, you 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:34.760 can't have duplicate web addresses. Otherwise servers wouldn't know which 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:38.360 machine you actually wanted to contact. So you can't have 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:43.040 two different sites that both use www. Dot house stuff 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.079 works dot com. But how do you prevent duplicates from happening? 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.600 How can you make sure that someone doesn't go out 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.439 and create a website that already uh you know, that 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.960 uses an address that's already in use. Well, that's why 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.199 there is a specific process you have to follow when 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.760 you establish a web address, and that process begins with 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:09.720 a registrar. Registrars are entities that are authorized to assign 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.040 host names under one or more top level domains like 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:15.280 dot com and dot org and that sort of stuff. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:20.200 Registrars then register those names with inter in I see 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:23.480 this is a server a service. Rather under i CAN, 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:27.120 I CAN as an organization. The acronym stands for the 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.440 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers, and i can's 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.000 job is to maintain order in all this chaos by 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.679 overseeing the root name servers, among other things. I CAN 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.240 actually has a lot of different responsibilities, but one of 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:46.520 them is to make sure that this system remains orderly. 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:50.679 So registration secures the web address for the server containing 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.000 that relevant information. No one else will be allowed to 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.560 use that web address, at least no one will be 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:01.000 allowed to use it legitimately. Uh So, anyone who uses 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.280 www dot house stuff works dot com should, in theory, 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.080 go straight to the house stuff Works homepage and nowhere else. 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.280 I'll talk about an exception to this a little bit later, 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:16.079 but it involves something hinky. So how does the Internet 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.360 know which computer you need to contact when you type 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:22.760 in the web address in human language? Because, like I said, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.320 it's human language, not machine language. Machines don't read human 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.640 language the way we do, at least not natively. You 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:35.160 can build in natural language algorithms that can parse language 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.200 and understand in a way or at least map in 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.480 a way what that language means and then respond to it. 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:46.600 But that's not the way machines typically communicate. So the 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.760 way machines do this is through the Domain name system 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.080 or DNS. Now, in the early days of the Internet 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.960 there was no d n s. The Network Information Center 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.040 maintained a text file that had web addresses mapped to 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:03.480 I P addresses. So, in other words, if you had 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:05.880 a web address back in those early early days of 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:12.280 the Internet we're talking pre then your web address appeared 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:14.640 in this text file and was corresponding. You know, it 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.280 corresponded to the actual I P address of the web 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:22.160 server that contained that web page. So if you had 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.600 a website at that time, then it would be inside 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.680 this text file. But as you probably can imagine, this 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.200 text file got really big, really quickly as more and 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.480 more entity started jumping on the Internet and and putting 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.920 web pages on the Internet. This text file grew to 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:45.000 an unmanageable size, so it was inefficient to keep a 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.120 single text document as the reference. It was taking too 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:52.120 long to cross reference web addresses to IP addresses. It 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.640 was actually increasing the amount of time it would take 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.880 for you to go to a website through your browser 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.640 because it was just taking too long to resolve the 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.200 web address name. So that's when the University of Wisconsin 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.720 formed the Domain Name System and it automatically maps web 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:13.080 addresses to IP addresses. So when you type in an address, 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.360 your request goes out over your network the Internet service 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:21.440 provider that you use, UM, it goes over their network 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:27.720 to their domain name server. Now, not every computer on 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.920 the Domain Name system has every web address and IP 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.000 address stored in it. It would be crazy if they did. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.360 So you type in a web address, it goes out 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.080 over your Internet service providers network to the DNS server. UH. 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:46.000 It consults its registry to see if it in fact 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.560 has the information needed, and if it doesn't, it works 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.000 with the other servers on the d n S to 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.680 find that information send it to your computer so that 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.080 it can contact the appropriate web server and get the 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.880 file that it once. So, if you're using a browser 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.199 to look up a web page, your request goes to 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.399 the d n S and that sends the IP address 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.120 of the appropriate server once it's identified, it to your browser. 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.080 Your browser then essentially sends a request to the web 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:21.760 server that has that particular page that file and says hey, 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.000 can I see that? And the web server, assuming everything 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.800 is on the up and up, says, of course you can, 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:30.120 and sends the file like the web page to your 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:34.280 browser and uh, you know, travels through the network in 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.520 this way. It's not it's not a direct pathway from 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.280 the server to your computer necessarily, and then it shows 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.840 up in your browser. Now, all this stuff happens in 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.520 fractions of a second um. Sometimes it can take a 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.000 little longer, depending upon the stats of the network and 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.800 the amount of traffic involved, but it's still an incredibly 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.960 fast process to especially when you consider how much is 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.920 actually going on here with all the cross referencing to 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.040 go from web address address to IP address to sending 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.919 the signal to responding to it, it's amazing. We'll be 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.560 back with more of this classic episode of tech stuff 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:26.040 after this quick break. Now, I've got a couple of 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.199 other things I wanted to mention. One of those is 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:35.040 why are so many web addresses written in English? Now 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:36.639 not all of them are, and in fact this has 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.159 changed quite a bit over the last few years. But 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.320 for a long time, English was the dominant language in 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.399 web addresses, even web addresses that were in other countries 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.000 that don't use English as their primary language. And the 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:57.240 reason is pretty you know, well, pretty cut and dry. Really, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.959 it's because the people who developed the standards we use 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.080 is for creating web addresses were mostly English speaking Americans, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:09.879 so um or English speaking natives, whether it was of 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:15.320 America or other countries. Now. Uh. The people who established 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.240 those rules included Tim Berners Lee, who worked for CERN 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.240 and was what we considered the inventor of the Worldwide Web. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.639 He designed the first web page, and then the Internet 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.000 Engineering Task Force or i e t F. They established 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.080 the set of standards for web addresses in and in 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.200 setting up the standards, the i e t F limited 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.320 web addresses to upper and lowercase Latin letters, in other words, 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:45.720 the letters that appear in the English alphabet, and you 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.399 could also use digits from zero to nine, and also 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.520 a few symbols, not all of them, but a few 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.400 of them. And if you spoke English, you you happen 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.560 to have an English keyboard, a keyboard that had Latin 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.280 alphabetical letters on it. That was okay, But if you 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.680 have to live in one of those countries that doesn't 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.120 use the Latin alphabet, it made using the web more difficult. 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.960 So for you folks out there using English keyboards such 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:16.480 as myself. Imagine if instead the Internet relied upon a 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.200 different alphabet, like an Arabic alphabet or a Cyrillic alphabet, 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:25.560 and you only had the English alphabet or Latin alphabet 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:28.040 to work with, it would be much harder for you 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:30.679 to navigate the web. You would have to, you know, 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:35.200 possibly use either you know, a mapping system, so that's 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:39.000 mapping English or Latin letters rather to these other alphabets, 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.560 or you might have to insert the letters one by 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:47.520 one using a the insert um uh option. It's not 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.280 the easiest thing in the world to do. Um So 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.240 that was one of the drawbacks to the Web for 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.280 many years. And it wasn't until two thousand nine that 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.280 i CAN approved the use of international allied domain names. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:05.400 That meant that Web addresses could finally include non English 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:10.080 characters in them. And coincidentally, perhaps two thousand nine was 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.160 also the year that the United States government gave up 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.760 control of i CAN and they transitioned it to a 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:22.200 multi stakeholder governance model. And you might wonder what that means. 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.040 It's it's essentially i CAN as a nonprofit organization and 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.119 it only answers to stakeholders rather than having to answer 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.680 to the United States government. And you might wonder why 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.080 it was, I can ever answering to the U. S 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.080 Government in the first place, But keep in mind the 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:43.000 Internet itself is essentially the product of a US government project. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.360 It all started back with ARPA back in those days. 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:52.040 It wasn't even DARPA yet, with ARPA Net, which established 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.840 the general structure and protocols that would be used later 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.640 and evolve into the ones that we use for the Internet. 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.639 So the United States was very heavily involved in the 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:08.560 construction and the standardization of the Internet, which is why 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.840 things are the way they are now. Besides non Latin characters, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:17.800 you are els can now also contain emojis, those little 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.120 symbols that mean all sorts of stuff. These days. Used 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.120 to be just be smiley and frowny faces and winky faces, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:26.520 but now it's all sorts of stuff. And we've seen 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.880 a couple of different examples of this. Coke launched an 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:33.159 ad campaign that used a single emoji Internet address, and 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.480 recently Norwegian Airlines did this for a special announcement they 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:41.879 were launching direct flights from Copenhagen to Las Vegas. So 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:47.960 there you are. L was www dot airplane, Emoji, slot machine, Emoji, 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:55.399 money emoji dot w S, which is adorable and maddening. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.240 Um so this could lead to a new era of emoji. 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:01.400 You are l's aimed at people younger than I am, 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.959 so get off my lawn. Okay, But seriously, this actually 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:08.199 does sound like a pretty nifty idea to mean. The 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.560 limitation really is that unless you have a device that 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.440 has the emojis available, it makes it harder to access 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.040 these sites, at least harder to access them directly. You 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:22.159 could still get there through other means, like a direct 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.440 link from another site or search results from a search 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:30.000 engine like Google. But maybe it's not a big deal anyway, 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.560 because I mean, how many people actually bother to type 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:34.879 in the web address for the websites they are going to? 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:37.960 Besides me? I know I do it. Maybe some of 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:39.960 you out there do it a lot too. But in 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.639 my mind, this is very similar to the limitations we 0:23:42.680 --> 0:23:47.919 saw when we could only use Latin alphabetical figures or 0:23:48.080 --> 0:23:52.040 characters rather when typing in web addresses. It's it's very 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.080 similar to that because if you don't have a smartphone 0:23:55.800 --> 0:23:59.080 or other device that has these emojis that are built 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:02.680 into it, you then have to construct them some other way. 0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:04.919 So I imagine most of these web addresses will have 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.600 a language variant of them, not just the emoji ones. 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:11.960 All right, so we've got a couple of other things 0:24:12.000 --> 0:24:14.560 we need to cover before I can wrap up here. 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:18.919 One of those is what about you are l shorteners? 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:22.760 So these are techniques that redirect traffic to a domain 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:27.040 name by using a short string to conserve characters. So, 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:29.680 in other words, instead of having a long web address, 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:32.840 you might have a much shorter one. Sometimes the shorter 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:35.400 one is a vanity you are l so that it's 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:39.280 very easy for you to tell somebody, hey, use this 0:24:39.400 --> 0:24:42.159 very short uh web address, you will go straight to 0:24:42.200 --> 0:24:45.600 my site. Sometimes it's more of like a random seeming 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:48.000