The Internet, and ds106.us and ds106rad.io

The Internet

For today’s daily create, tdc643, we are asked to draw the internet. I’m not sure I can fit in the entire collection of routers, servers, cables, radios, wires, fiber optics, data centers, hosting services, and everything else that make up the internet. So, I’ve focused in on two parts by performing a tracert (trace route) command and seeing the path taken from my laptop at home to the two organizations that provide the most oversight over what we call the internet.

First is the World Wide Web Consortium, responsible for the structure and use of the URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that we use to find the computers on the internet. Of course, there is more to it than that.

Second is the Internet Engineering Task Force, overseeing such things as the various numbers and addresses used to navigate through the internet, and many of the protocols and structures that make things work.

In furthering my research and understanding of the structure of the internet, I did two more tracert commands, to find out where the servers for ds106.us and ds106rad.io are located. It might not surprise you to know that ds106.us ends at hippiehosting, and is actually in Montreal. I was only slightly surprised to find ds106rad.io hosted at a server in Vancouver, British Columbia.