Internet

The internet appears to be an almost indispensable invention in today’s society. The Internet has been open to the public since 1993, and has been an integral part of our society ever since. However, it already existed before that, when it was initially only used by governments and scientists. Nevertheless, because the internet has now become more and more important, increasingly complex questions arise. For an understanding of (legal) problems related to this, it is necessary to know what the internet is and how it works.

The internet is an organized, global public network of autonomous computer networks. In other words, it is a network of networks. The networks are physically linked by all kinds of different technologies. The devices connected to the internet can communicate with each other by voluntarily using the same standardized communication protocols – say a language. The core of these protocols is the Internet Protocol Suite (IPS), developed by the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) of the United States military in the 1970s. The network has no central points on which it depends. It is therefore not a centralized or decentralized network, but a distributed network. If a feature is dropped from the network for whatever reason, traffic can still arrive at its destination via a different route. This is called packet switching. Communication takes place in the sending of various small packets, which search for their final destination through the most efficient route through the network. At the recipient of the packages, the packages come together and form the original information again.

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP) are the most important and best known of the IPS. These provide the aforementioned packet-switched communication on the internet. Each connected device has its own IP address. Based on this, the devices that control traffic know which packets of information have to be sent to which equipment. TCP arranges that when a package arrives a confirmation is sent. If this confirmation is not received, it will be sent again.

The internet can be imagined as a layered infrastructure:

The application layer and the physical layer is what the normal internet user most ‘sees’: in the application layer, the digital data takes the form of understandable information, such as photos, video, text, images and the like. The physical layer concerns the ‘hardware’ we use to connect to the internet.

IP networks that function and are managed independently are also called Autonomous Systems. Within such a system, agreements have been made about the route that traffic must travel within that network. The devices can communicate with each other within their own network, but not with devices outside it. Moreover, there are also other agreements for this, namely about exchanging data between the networks. This is called interconnection. Peering (with closed exchanges) or transit (for a fee) can be used for this. Routing between different networks is based on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).

When multiple autonomous systems make agreements about linking their networks (peering), an internet node is created. The internet node in Amsterdam is one of the largest Internet Exchanges in the world: the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX).

The above explanation concerns the internet as a communication infrastructure. It must be distinguished from the Internet as an application – also known as the “web” or “world wide web”. The worldwide web uses the application layer mentioned above. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is used for this. This allows web clients (such as a browser) and a web server (the location where information is stored) to communicate with each other. A client can make a request to a server using HTTP. Such a request contains a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. The URL refers to specific data on a server, such as the location of a web page (https://lawfox.nl). URLs are hyperlinks (“super links”).

Domain names are linked to IP addresses on the Internet using the Domain Name System (DNS). The IP address is a series of numbers that indicates the address of a device on the Internet. DNS makes it easier for people to remember that address. For example, when you enter the domain name of a website, the IP address to which this domain name refers will automatically be searched for.

Developments are moving very fast. Wireless network technology and the shrinking of the necessary hardware are increasingly ensuring that more and more devices are suitable for connection to the internet. We are now on the verge of linking physical objects to the internet. This is called The Internet of Things.