A Succinct Definition of the Internet? 498
magnamous asks: "Ever since Senator Ted Stevens used the phrase 'series of tubes' to describe his understanding of the Internet, I've noticed several stories and comments referencing how silly that is. Although I agree that that description is rather silly, each time I've found myself trying to come up with a -succinct layman's definition- of what the Internet is, and I come up short. Wikipedia has a gargantuan page describing the Internet, and Google's definitions offer pretty good descriptions of what the Internet is in a functional sense (with some throwing in terms that the layman wouldn't understand, or take the time to understand), but not really a good description of what it -is- in the physical sense that I think Sen. Stevens was trying to get at. What are your suggestions for a succinct layman's definition of the Internet?"
I know some would say that laypeople should take the time to learn the technical, more accurate meaning of what the Internet is. The problem is that they won't. We all know laypeople. I live with two of them. When you start talking about 'TCP/IP' or 'DNS', or if you get far enough to start describing those terms, their eyes glaze over. That's what makes them laypeople — they don't care about the subject enough to learn about it in-depth; if they did, they'd be computer enthusiasts. So please keep in mind that, in order for this discussion to be useful, 'succinct' and 'layman' are essential parts to any definition of the Internet given here. Also keep in mind that 'succinct' doesn't necessarily mean one sentence; a relatively short paragraph would be fine, too — the main goal is to come up with something that physically describes the Internet in a way which laypeople can actually understand."
The Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Internet (Score:5, Funny)
Usenet was not the Internet, but back when it was most of what the Internet was used for, Gene Spafford said the same thing, albeit somewhat more whimsically:
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
- Gene Spafford, 1992
The Internet is a model train set (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a bunch of computers - big and small, like the one on your desk and big ones that live in big rooms full of other computers. In between them is a lot of fiber optic cable. And organizing all the fiber optic cable is a set of junctions, like you would have in a model train set, only functioning at a bazillion miles an hour.
Each little bit of data that you ask for, and the request itself, is like a little train, going down a track. It keeps hitting these junctions that read where it is going and shunt it onto the right cable to get there. When it gets there, in all likelihood the computer at that end sends something back, which travels the same way.
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Internet: The internet is like a giant brain, in which you are a moron -I mean neuron.
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Maybe a better analogy would be a classroom with a bunch of kids (computers) passing notes (packets) to each other. If a kid passes a note to someone directly beside them (same subnet) then they can just reach over and drop it on their desk. If it needs to go to a kid on the opposite side of the room, they pass the note to their friend who passes it on.
That's quite good.
I would also say:
Re:The Internet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The Internet (Score:5, Funny)
My definition (Score:4, Interesting)
People describing IP, TCP, Web, Usenet, VOIP all miss out on what the internet REALLY is, communication. The means, methods, routing and all of that is what makes it work, but not the purpose. Purpose is ONLY communication, nothing more, nothing less.
Best one short sentence description? (Score:4, Insightful)
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I often find the word lethologica on the tip of my tounge...
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It includes cell phones, and doesn't mention any specifics. Any definition that mentions the physical medium across which the data is carried does not define the internet, since it doesn't include the venerable IP over Carrier Pidgeon spec, or the IP over Smoke Signal, or Sneakernet, or any of the other ways that data can be exchanged between computers that doesn't involve electrical wiring. Yes, the Inte
Re:Best one short sentence description? (Score:4, Interesting)
"It's the phone system for computers. It allows your computer to contact other computers and exchange information, just like you do with your home phone. And as with your phone, there's lots of physical ways to make that work (cells phones, old black rotary phones, big office phone exchanges with hundreds of handsets, and so on. To important thing is the information that flows, and that the actually connection part has been automated so you don't have to worry about how it works, you can focus on the communication part of what you're trying to do..."
- peterd (not signed in)
Series of tubes (Score:4, Insightful)
We used to call aeroplanes "big metal birds" and people instantly associate it with "big flying things" in a physical sense. Later on, aeroplane becomes a common term and no more layman terms are needed.
So in the future the term "internet" would be enough for everyone, but right now, "series of tubes" pretty much describes its physical structure.
Re:Series of tubes (Score:5, Insightful)
It's true, these people may not understand exactly what it is on a low level, like what backbones are, what companies own them, what TCP/IP is, etc., but just like with airplanes, they know the important stuff: that it's a "network" connected to their computer that they can use to access email, websites, and other services. These nontechnical people use the internet every day for reading their email, buying stuff on Amazon.com, checking out their favorite discussion forums, etc. They don't need a definition for the "internet". They already know what it is. That some stupid politician doesn't know, or feels some need to create a definition, is utterly pathetic.
Re:Series of tubes (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not just pathetic, its utterly embarrassing. If you're regulating something it would be nice if you have some idea of what that thing is. Saying stuff like:
"I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially."
does not exactly inspire confidence that he knows what he's regulating.
However I think he's far less unusual then you suggest. You might be right that most people have heard of the internet, but I'd guess loads don't really know what it actually is or how it would work. Try asking a couple of non-geeky people you know to explain how they think the internet works. My Mother who has been using e-mail and the web for quite some time, still doens't really understand the difference between the internet, Google and the browser. She didn't even realise there was a difference for many years. When I tried to introduce her to firefox she thought it was a different 'internet' because I didn't have google as the homepage (which is when I tried to explain google is a website, not the web. She didn't get it). Just because people have heard of or use the internet doesn't mean they actually know what it is, how it works, or anything other then how they access it.
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How exactly do rats desert a sinking ship?
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Re:Series of tubes (Score:4, Interesting)
For these people I say:
"It's computers talking to other computers over cables. The cables are connected via a sort of automatic phone dialer called a "Router" using a sort of electronic phone directory called "DNS" where the name of the site you click on to is translated into the that site's phone number. That's simplistic, and there's a lot more to it than that of course, but that's basically it -- cables, routers and electronic directories".
Disclaimer -- I'm a senior architect for a major telco's VoIP transformation, so nothing I'm likely to say is authoritative. But I do have to say these words to people...
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For people immersed in an IT culture, what the Internet "is" and "how it works" are no-brainers. But there's a trap of expertise in that it does not cross cultural boundaries, as communications between the technology "haves" and "have-
Re:Many really don't know... (Score:4, Funny)
Series of tubes is a good metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics aside, I don't really see the technical problem with comparing the Internet to a series of tubes. Tubes have a predictable bandwidth, i.e. you can only pump a certain amount of liquid or gas through them in a given time; and they have predictable latency, i.e. you push something in one end, it takes some time to come out the other end. So far, a lot like a network connection.
What the "series of tubes" doesn't capture is the packetized nature of the internet, or the complexities of routing, and other such details. However, at the abstraction level at which Stevens was talking, I'm not sure any of that matters. If you're talking about things like "clogging up the Internet", it's true that that can happen, for the same reasons that tubes can get clogged: if you try to put too much stuff in, at too many entry points, your backbone tubes are going to become a bottleneck. So the metaphor holds up in this case, and predicts behavior that you can see on actual networks.
The fact that the email problem Stevens was describing had nothing to do with Internet congestion is a separate issue, which doesn't actually detract from "series of tubes" as a metaphor for the Internet at a certain level of abstraction.
I'd love to hear reasons why I'm wrong. Other than "Ignore the facts, we must excoriate politicians who are against network neutrality!" Ridiculing a perfectly good metaphor just because you don't agree with the guy using it is not the way to sensible public policy, although I admit it does seem to be how politics is often conducted.
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A series of tubes with individual gerbils running through 'em?
Re:Series of tubes is a good metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
A roadway is a much better analogy. It isn't perfect, but it at least captures the fundamental notion that you have lots of pieces of data trying to get from different point As to different point Bs across a common, shared network of paths. The word "congestion" also means the same thing on the 'net as it does on the beltway.
Re:Series of tubes is a good metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Series of tubes is a good metaphor (Score:5, Funny)
Saw this a long time ago, still appropriate today.
Think of the Internet as a highway
There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway". They don't know didley about the Net. It's nothing like a superhighway. That's a rotten metaphor.
Suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the net...
A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with pitfalls for potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member vigilante posses with nuclear weapons. A minimum of 237 on ramps at every intersection.
No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions.
Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawn mower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitroglycerin and idle at 120.
No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirt guns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.
NO OFFRAMPS. None.
Now that's the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
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Re:Series of tubes is a good metaphor (Score:4, Interesting)
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(I'm all for ridiculing the man on political grounds, but going after the guy for this is just childish.)
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No it wasn't. The "series of tubes" part of the metaphor was ok, but the rest of the metaphor was confused non-sense that corresponding to nothing in real-life and suggests the fact that the quasi-usefullness of the "series of tubes" part is probably more accident then a demonstration of any level of understanding.
I think Stevens is being unfairly ridiculed. (Score:3, Informative)
I think criticisms of Stevens' "series of tubes" comment are a tad overblown. After all, the engineers DO use "pipes" as a term of art for the connections between routers. I suspect Stevens heard some of this talk and was trying to repeat it, but warped "pipe" into "tube" - a reasonable layman mistake.
"Informaiton superhighway" is actually not all that bad
the internet in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the internet in a nutshell (Score:4, Insightful)
"A global computer network."
People all know the word 'A' but probably couldn't tell you if it is an article or a noun.
People understand global. To the stupidest it means big, to the educated.. well they should know damn well what the internet is.
Computer. You know that thing that beeps and bops and plays games and downloads porn.
Network. That thing you build up when you politic.. except this time its for computers.
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Porn Central (Score:3, Funny)
It's Tubes, Quite ALright (Score:2)
Ted Stevens was way off (Score:5, Funny)
It's an array of pipes!
Less of an array, more of a n-ary linked list but. (Score:5, Funny)
Youtube answers (Score:5, Interesting)
What's so wrong with Tubes? (Score:2)
It's like if you were describing a car... aw never mind
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Millions of computers hooked together (Score:2)
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To me, the most important things to know are:
1) on the internet every computer has a unique ip adres.
2) data is sent to other computers by means of routing. For an ordinary computer, that means looking at the destination addres to determine if it is on the local network. If so, it sends it directly to that computer, if not it sends it to the router. Routers connect different networks, and when a message arrives, it retransmits it o
The Internet is... (Score:5, Informative)
That's it. The Internet is not wires, fiber-optic cables, http, TCP/IP, or anything like that, because those are technical details which have changed in the past and may change in the future.
Re:The Internet is... (Score:5, Insightful)
However since we are defining The Internet and not merely any computer network (to which your definition would apply), you should mention that this is a globally connected public system.
Since I don't have mod points (and you don't need) (Score:2)
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Tubes are fine (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually when i try to describe the internet I liken it to the mail system. You have "envelopes" that are addressed to someplace. Then they get picked up by someone, thrown on a truck, routed etc. It's basically the same thing that happens with packets as they get routed.
As far as the WWW goes, that's a different and distinct thing that's built on top of the Internet. I don't think it's really that hard to explain. It's just like a library or newspaper basically.
If you want to get into the finer social implications.. then that's another story, but the basics, I think, are easily understood in terms of familiar concepts.
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In context, Ted was nuts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of the rest of the description wherein he believed that other people downloading movies somewhere were clogging the pipes and kept his "internet" (email) from arriving on time. If you watch it in context, it's clear that he doesn't know how the internet works. As far as anyone can tell, he believed the pipes are, well, literal pipes with "internets" flowing through them. Did you ever see the full speech? Only the first line gets widely quoted any more, but the Daily Show showed the whole thing. It was ridiculous.
Anyhow, the most succinct definition of "internet" I can give you is just one word: here.
Or if you need something with more technical accuracy, it's the giant network computers get connected to because almost everyone else is also connected to it. All the internet providers link to other providers, who eventually link with everyone else, because there's not much value in having a network isolated from the rest of the world in most cases.
That's cause IT IS like the mail system (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to explain the internet to people, use the analogies that the original terms were modeled after!
Server - A server is like a waiter or customer service person. You ask it for something and get get sir for you. The ony difference is the server is a computer that is handling the requests.
Client - A client is like a patron or business client; he is the person asking the server for things. In the case of the internet the client is another computer, who is asking the server for something.
Packet - A bundle of information, with an address, that needs to be delivered. The packet could be going from the client to the server, in which case it is how the client is asking the server for something. If it is going from the server to the client, it is the information the server asked for.
Server, Client, Packet. Three simple words any layperson SHOULD ALREADY KNOW. It's not really hard to explain.
It's a big truck (Score:2)
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no simple definition (Score:2)
Of course, that only describes one aspect. There are many aspects, so your layman's description should change with context.
oblig simpsons (Score:2, Funny)
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Whoa, whoa -- slow down, egghead!
The definition I've always used: (Score:2)
(It's not about protocols. If you wired up a network using X.25 or DECNet, fired up some obscure machine, loaded up an information server on it, then provided a gateway to regular TCP/IP and a proxy to HTTP, that machine would be as much "on the internet" as any other. Any definition has to allow for non-standard connections, or it's not a complete definition of the Internet t
Simple English Wiki (Score:4, Insightful)
So when you come up with a good definition, please contribute and edit the Simple English page.
Easy (Score:2)
Pipes okay, but not tubes? (Score:2)
Re:Pipes okay, but not tubes? (Score:5, Interesting)
"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
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It displays an amazing ignorance of the scale and nature of the Internet. He
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best definition I've heard... (Score:4, Funny)
A series of... (Score:2)
Communication occurs over various "ports," which are similar in concept to frequencies in the radio world.
With any "layman's definition," you have to make analogies to things that the layman already understands. Otherwise, you would have to go into great technical detail. Sen. Stevens problem was that he simply repeated someone else's analogy (a telco/cableco lobbyist's for certain) but he does not understand it himself.
The analogy he used was not appropriate for explai
Highway. (Score:2)
Bandwidth - how many lanes the road supports, the wider the number of lanes, the more traffic it can support (I also illustrate transportation types - motorcycles are fast but carry little, trucks carry lots and are slow etc.)
latency - the speed limit on that section of road
Ports/firewall ports:
Tubes! (Score:2)
Ill tell you what Sen.Stevens was trying to get at (Score:2)
and his definition of internet in fact was "something we ol' boys definitely need to put a leash on and control that this freedom of information thing wont go far and hurt our 'business'"
the reason that his actual definition and what he said about the tubes seeming sooo different when you would actual
A roadmap for clouds (Score:2)
Imagine a giant radish (Score:5, Funny)
That's the internet.
No it's not. How do you think the web was born? (Score:2)
No it's not. How do you think the web was born? (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, oh I know... (Score:2)
Depends on the context (Score:5, Insightful)
Deconstruction (Score:2)
I'm sorry; is "network" too technical for layperson comprehension? The word itself is not technical, even if the subject of computer networks is
I don't think it was the word "tubes" that got "Interwebs Ted" into trouble. I've heard a lot of technical folks over the years describe bandwidth in terms like "pipes" to make an analogy with water flow. So, "tubes" is not so far off the mark. But, a netw
Network of Networks? (Score:2)
Really simple... (Score:2)
A network is when a bunch of computers talk to each other. Like, when you have a bunch of computers in a computer lab classroom, and they are all plugged into each other so that you can work on a file on any of the computers.
An internet is when you gang together a couple of networks so they talk to each other.
The Internet is what you get when all the networks talk
It's a cloud, and other little cartoony things. (Score:5, Funny)
Webster is fine (Score:4, Informative)
I think this is a servicable, sucinct, definition. Of course, I would have split it in two as follows...
Internet (proper noun): the global internetwork based on the Internet Protocol.
internetwork (noun): an electronic communications network that connects computer networks and organizational computer facilities.
but I'm a bit pedantic.
It's a tough thing to describe because... (Score:2)
Al Gore's "Information Superhighway" is a lot closer than the "series of tubes," although it's more like the transportation system of the entire world.
The Internet... (Score:2)
employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness. How
deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of
all things!
Then again, I may be confusing it with the Tao.
here goes (Score:2)
Ah, that's an easy one. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Many computers--all friends."
When in doubt, ask the inventor... (Score:5, Funny)
My personal playground (Score:2)
Easy (Score:2)
The several networks cooperate by using a defined standard of communication "rules", called "RFCs", by providing selected services such as web servers, email servers, DNS systems, and other systems to the general public, and some provide more services to their customers/users.
There's the 10,000 foot over view.
Picture the internet (Score:2)
(meta usage intended) With that in mind...
Picture the internet as a vast ever changing network of many many spiderwebs all interwoven together. These spiderwebs were spun in many shapes and sizes and thicknesses by many different kinds of spiders who decided to cooperate. But, instead of catching bugs with this giant ever-evolving spiderweb, the spiders pass data through its strands to each other. Accordingly, scatter
Internet is Information (Score:2)
The Internet is people and programs sending and receiving information to each other via computers and networks.
I don't see how you need to say anything more than that to laypeople of the kind that you describe, whose eyes glaze over when talking about technical details. Do not talk about how the internet works, just s
Oldie but goodie (Score:2)
Information superhighway (or just comparing to the US road system) is pretty good:
You start with the major highways, which get progressively smaller and smaller as you get to state then town roads, then someone's house (their PC). Different kinds of traffic can flow on those roads at the same time - trucks, cars, minivans, etc. Some areas you can't easily get into or are limited (gated communities, private property, etc.).
Bus Station Newstand (Score:2)
a really really big one. With Vending Machines.
And it is in the middle of a Bus Station.
A collection (Score:2)
The Internet is like Air... (Score:2)
Yell - and everyone hears you, but they soon ignore you
Whisper - and a few people hear you.
Governments would like to control it - but can't.
And best of all - when you fart in an elevator you can blame it on other people.
I think you're missing the point (Score:2)
Go listen to Stephens' speech [youtube.com] again.
It's clear he's (badly) regurgitating some laymens terms that have been fed to him by god-knows what lobbyist.
Furthermore, this isn't my grandpa we're talking about, this is one of the most powerful people in the country responsible for legislation governing the internet.
The "series of tubes" phrase might be a reasonable thing you'd say to your grand
Answer is in the post... (Score:2)
A global network connecting millions of computers.
Can we have more interesting topics for Ask Slashdot, now? Please?
The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is no single piece of technology. It is an agreement about how to have different networks and technologies talk to each other and work together.
It's a bit heady, maybe even a bit airy-fairy, but the essay captures some of the essence of why the Internet is different and proves to be so valuable.
I also think it's a good lead in for discussing why net neutrality is essential. A non-neutral policy essentially throws away the agreement, likely fracturing the network into pieces between which there'd be ongoing maybe-we'll-talk-maybe-we-won't negotiations. Pieces get balkanized, even walled off, and resources that used to go to developing services that anyone who was part of the agreement could use now have to be devoted to the negotiation.
With the Internet agreement, you don't have to concentrate on that. Just follow the guidelines on how to talk to one edge of the net, and you can talk to the whole world. That's the revolution.
Think of the Internet as a Highway . . . (Score:5, Funny)
No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions.
Ad hoc traffic laws. Some lanes would vote to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking bus with hundreds of ebola victims on board throwing dead wombats and rotten cabbage at the other cars, most of which have been assembled at home from kits. Some are built around 2.5 horsepower lawn mower engines with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn nitroglycerin and idle at 120.
No license plates. World War II bomber nose art instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or vampire eagles. Bumper mounted machine guns. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a white phosphorus grenade up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks cruise around with anti-aircraft missile batteries to shoot down the traffic helicopter. Little kids on tricycles with squirt guns filled with hydrochloric acid switch lanes without warning.
No off ramps. None.
Author (maybe, it's hard to track down sources on the Net): Jim Wiedman
A Network of Networks (Score:3, Interesting)
They don't have to understand how it actually works. But they understand the concept of networking through social networking. It's a concept that's innate to human nature. Computer networking really isn't any different, and isn't a hard topic for people to grasp in general terms.
Webopedia (Score:4, Informative)
"A global network connecting millions of computers. More than 100 countries are linked into exchanges of data, news and opinions..."
http://webopedia.com/TERM/I/Internet.html [webopedia.com]
quote from NANOG (Score:3, Funny)
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