CSCI 127 (Hunter College) Networking Acronyms
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DSL
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(Digital Subscriber Line) A high-speed Internet connection that uses existing telephone lines, requiring close proximity to a switching station.
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Wi-Fi
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(Wireless Fidelity) A popular wireless LAN technology that allows multiple computers to connect to a LAN through a base station up to 150 feet away. Often referred to as 802.11b.
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ISP
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(Internet Service Provider) A company that provides access to the Internet.
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IP
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(Internet Protocol) A communications protocol for computers connected to a network, especially the Internet, specifying the format for addresses and units of transmitted data.
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IPv4
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(Internet Protocol version 4) Identifies hosts using a 32-bit IP address. IPv4 is expressed in dotted decimal format with decimal numbers separated by dots or periods like this: 192.168.1.1. (4 octets, contains network and host info).
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IPv6
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(Internet Protocol version 6) Identifies hosts using a 128-bit address. IPv6 is expressed as eight groups of four hexadecimal characters (numbers and letters), such as this: FE80: 0000: 0000: 0000: 20D4: 3FF7: 003F:DE62.
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TLD
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(Top Level Domain) The last section of the domain name: represents the website you are visiting such as .com .net .org .gov .edu.
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gTLD
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(Generic Top Level Domain) [As of February, 2014] TLDs including .money, .sport, .accountants, .marketing and .music will be available to new businesses and registrants, as part of a new scheme by The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The new \"gTLDs\" will represent the biggest change to the internet since the first set of top-level domains (.com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov) were launched in 1984.
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ccTLD
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(Country Code Top Level Domains) An Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, a sovereign state, or a dependent territory (such as: .au, .ca, .jp., and .uk).
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DNS
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(Domain Name System)—The service that allows you to use a friendly name like flickr.com instead of an IP address like 165.193.123.253 to contact a Web site.
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URL
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(Uniform Resource Locator) An address such as http://google.com, that consists of three main parts: protocol, domain name, and top-level domain.
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HTTP
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(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) The underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands. For example, when you enter a URL in your browser, this actually sends an HTTP command to the Web server directing it to fetch and transmit the requested Web page.
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FTP
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(File Transfer Protocol) A communications protocol used to transfer files from one computer to another over a network. FTP is often used to upload Web pages to a Web server.
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DHCP
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(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) A standardized networking protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for dynamically [capable of changing \"on the fly\"] distributing network configuration parameters, such as IP addresses for interfaces and services. With DHCP, computers request IP addresses and networking parameters automatically from a DHCP server, reducing the need for a network administrator or a user to configure these settings manually.
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LAN
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(Local Area Network) A network that connects devices located in a small geographical area such as within a building.
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MAN
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(Metropolitan Area Network) Large computer network usually spanning a city; large companies or university campuses.
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WAN
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(Wide Area Network) Uses long-distance transmission media, including satellites and leased lines. Links computer systems thousands of miles apart. Usually not owned by a single organization. Internet is the world's largest WAN.
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P2P
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(Peer to Peer) Peer-to-peer is a communications model in which each party has the same capabilities and either party can initiate a communication session. Other models with which it might be contrasted include the client/server model and the master/slave model. In some cases, peer-to-peer communications is implemented by giving each communication node both server and client capabilities. BitTorrent (or anything else named \"torrent\"), Skype, and Napster are some examples of P2P applications.
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TCP/IP
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(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) TCP/IP is a two-layer program. The higher layer, TCP, manages the assembling of a message or file into smaller packets that are transmitted over the Internet and received by a TCP layer that reassembles the packets into the original message. The lower layer, IP, handles the address part of each packet so that it gets to the right destination.
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SMTP
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(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet.
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SSH
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(Secure Shell) A UNIX-based command interface and protocol for securely getting access to a remote computer. It is widely used by network administrators to control Web and other kinds of servers remotely.
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OSI
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(Open System Interconnection) Defines internetworking in terms of a vertical stack of 7 layers. Upper layers of the OSI model represent software that implements network services like encryption and connection management. Lower layers of the OSI model implement more primitive, hardware-oriented functions like routing, addressing, and flow control. Layers are (from bottom up): Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data Link, and Physical.
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SSL
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(Secure Socket Layer) A secure protocol developed for sending information securely over the Internet. Many websites use SSL for secure areas of their sites, such as user account pages and online checkout. SSL encrypts the data being transmitted so that a third party cannot \"eavesdrop\" on the transmission and view the data being transmitted.
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DoS attack
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(Denial of Service Attack) Hackers flood a network server with thousands of false communications to crash the network.
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DDoS attack
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(Distributed Denial of Service Attack) An attacker may use your computer to attack another computer. By taking advantage of security vulnerabilities or weaknesses, an attacker could take control of your computer. He or she could then force your computer to send huge amounts of data to a website or send spam to particular email addresses. The attack is \"distributed\" because the attacker is using multiple computers, including yours, to launch the denial-of-service attack.
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HTTPS
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(Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure) The same thing as HTTP, but uses a secure socket layer (SSL) for security purposes. Some examples of sites that use HTTPS include banking and investment websites, e-commerce websites, and most websites that require you to log in.
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3G
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(Third Generation) A mobile communications standard that allows cell phones, computers, and other portable electronic devices to access the Internet wirelessly. 3G promised bandwidth up to 384 Kbps when a device is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, 128 Kbps in a car, and 2 Mbps in fixed applications.
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4G
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(Fourth Generation) A mobile communications standard intended to replace 3G. All 4G technologies are required to provide peak data transfer rates of at least 100 Mbps.
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WiMAX
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(Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) A wireless communications standard designed for creating metropolitan area networks (MANs). It is similar to the Wi-Fi standard, but supports a far greater range of coverage. While a Wi-Fi signal can cover a radius of several hundred feet, a fixed WiMAX station can cover a range of up to 30 miles. Mobile WiMAX stations can broadcast up to 10 miles.
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LTE
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(Long-Term Evolution) A 4G mobile communications standard. LTE can theoretically support downloads at 300 Mbps or more based on experimental trials.
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CIDR
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(Classless Inter-Domain Routing) A scheme to help reduce Internet routing table sizes by administratively allocating large blocks of consecutive classful IP network numbers to ISPs for use in different global geographies. CIDR results in large blocks of networks that can be summarized, or aggregated, into single routes. Its goal was to slow the growth of routing tables on routers across the Internet, and to help slow the rapid exhaustion of IPv4 addresses (Example: think of zip codes and how each region has zip codes that all begin with the same 2 or 3 numbers).
