RFC 2664

Network Working Group 🎀

RFC 2664: FYI on Questions and Answers 💖

Answers to Commonly Asked "New Internet User" Questions ✨

Okay bestie, here's the deal 💅 This is RFC 2664, also filed as FYI 4 (which is basically the "for your information" series 🧚). It's an Informational doc from the Network Working Group, dated August 1999, and it obsoletes RFC 1594. The authors are R. Plzak (SAIC), A. Wells (UWisc-Mad), and E. Krol (Univ IL). Iconic team 👑

---

Status of this Memo 🌸

This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice 🔒

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract 🦋

Okay so this memo is basically a warm welcome for the new Internet user 🫶 It's written for the everyday person using the Internet today, so it takes a more consumer-friendly vibe instead of diving deep into any one topic. Unlike the older editions, this one answers the general stuff an unsophisticated consumer would wonder about, not the more pointed questions a technically sophisticated user would ask. If you're craving the deep dive, the memo points you to FYI 7, which covers intermediate and advanced Q/A topics 🤓 The goal here is to keep things brief but still give the new user enough to generally understand the Internet. No cap, it's a solid starter pack ✨

1. Acknowledgements 🙌

The following people deserve thanks for their help and contributions to this FYI Q/A: Chris Burke (Motorola), John Curran (BBN Planet), Albert Lunde (NWU), and April Marine (Internet Engines, Inc.). Last but not least, thanks go out to Patricia Harper and Charlotte Nurge 💜 These ladies from South Riding, Virginia, consumer tested this document, so it's been vibe-checked by real people 😭

2. Questions About the Internet 🌐

2.1. What is the Internet?

Okay so people use computers for a wild variety of tasks 💻 A connected group of computers is called a network ✨ Because people are connected through this network, they can use their computers to swap ideas and information. Some computers hook up directly to the network, while others (mostly the ones in homes) connect through a telephone line and a device called a modem 📞 Then you connect networks to each other using specialized computers called routers 🦋 That way, people on one network can hang out and do stuff with people on other networks. This INTER-connected group of NETworks is what we call the INTERNET 🌈 It's giving connection, bestie 💖

2.2. What Can I do on the Internet?

There's a huge list of things users can do on the Internet 🎉 Activities include surfing, searching, sending mail, transferring programs and documents, chatting, and playing games.

SURFING 🏄

Surfing is one of the most popular Internet activities, and it's so main character 💅 To surf, you need a program called a web browser. The browser lets you connect to a location that has information. A lot of locations have links to other sites with related info 🔗 These links are usually underlined text in a different color from the rest of the article. When you click one, you get connected to that information. The new info might be at the same location or somewhere else, and it might have its own links too 🌸 So just like a footnote or reference in a print publication, links can take you to related info or totally unrelated info. Iykyk 😭

SEARCHING 🔍

Searching uses a special program called a search engine 💫 There are several of these engines, living at various search sites. Popular web browsers already know where these search sites are 🧚 Searching is kind of like using a card catalog at the library 📚 Just like someone would look up a topic in a card catalog and find references with library location info, a search engine gives you a list of sites that might have what you need. That list is actually a set of links, so all you have to do is click to get there ✨ And just like different library catalogs have different reference cards, different search engines give you different lists 🫶

E-MAIL 💌

E-mail is another super popular activity 💕 It's really similar to sending letters through the post office, or leaving notes and memos around the office. It's used to exchange messages between two or more people. Email can be misunderstood or abused, so users should be familiar with email netiquette 🙈 For more info, check out the Netiquette Guidelines [FYI 28, RFC 1855].

Lots of people also join mailing lists 📬 A mailing list is usually dedicated to a particular topic or interest. Some lists exist to give subscribers info, like product updates for something they bought, while others are for discussion. In the discussion kind, people take part by sending an email to a "list" address, and that address passes it along to every member of the list 🔁 Abuse of mail lists is probably the biggest source of junk email (also known as "spam") 💀 So everyone should take care not to become the source of junk mail, okay? 🫶

FILE TRANSFER 📁

Programs and documents get transferred in several ways 🌈 The most common way between individual users is to attach the program or document to an email message. Programs and documents are usually transferred from sites to users using the save feature of a web browser, or the file transfer protocol (FTP) 💾 These transfers let users get all sorts of programs, documents, audio files, and video files 🎵

CHAT 💬

Chat happens between one or more people who are on the Internet, and honestly it's giving going to a party 🥳 Just like people hang out in small groups and talk, chatters meet in chat rooms to discuss a topic. Chat rooms are usually sponsored or run by an organization that cares about the topic. For example, an online news organization might have a chat room where chatters talk about current events 📰 To chat, one person writes a message that others can read while it's being typed, and they can reply in turn 💅 First-time chatters, heads up: just like at a party where some people never say a word, there may be people in the room who are only listening 👀 Also, just like at a party, some people may present themselves as someone other than who they really are 🎭 Lastly, remember that chatters come and go from chat rooms the same way people drift around a party 🦋

GAMES 🎮

Some people use the Internet to play games 👾 These can be role playing games, action/adventure games, or online versions of old standbys like chess ♟️ Some games need you to buy a copy and install it on your computer, while others are played by going to a game site. Just like any other kind of game playing, Internet gaming can be challenging, entertaining, and a really enjoyable social experience 🥰 Don't be afraid to have fun! 🌟

OTHER ACTIVITIES 🛍️

Other popular activities include electronic shopping, banking, and investing 💸 Lots of retailers describe and show pictures of their products online, so people can buy on line 🛒 Shopping also includes buying services, like an airline ticket or ordering groceries. Many banks let people transfer funds, check available funds, pay bills, and do other stuff while on the Internet, using an account number and ID 🏦 And lastly, lots of people invest online in everything from stocks and bonds to real estate 📈 One word of caution, though: if you're using a credit card, check whether there are security features in place to protect your card information 🔐 Reputable sites should tell you how they protect your info. If you're not sure how your information will be protected, don't use your credit card at that site 🚫💳

2.3. What is an Address?

Two questions people ask all the time these days are "What's your e-mail address?" and "What's the URL?" 📬 Generally, the first one is asking where to send information, while the second is asking where to get information 🧭 The answer to the first is usually something like myname@company.com. The answer to the second is usually something like "http://www.newspaper.com". So what do these answers actually mean? 🤔

E-MAIL ADDRESS 💌

As mentioned before, an e-mail address looks like "myname@company.com", pronounced "MYNAME at COMPANY dot COM" 🗣️ An email address has two parts, split by an "@" sign ✨

The part on the left is like the name line on a letter 💖 It identifies a particular person and is usually made from the person's name. Typical names look like this:

john_doe
john.doe
jdoe
doej

The name gets assigned by the system or network administrator who manages the email system, and it follows rules set by the company providing the email service 🧑‍💻 Sometimes the name part of the address is called a mailbox 📭

The part on the right of the "@" sign is the name of the computer system providing the email service 🖥️ This name is usually the company that owns the computer system, followed by a "dot" and an abbreviation for the "domain," or group of names the organization falls under 🌐 Examples of these "top level" domains are "edu," "com," and country codes such as "fr" for France and "jp" for Japan 🇫🇷🇯🇵 When an email gets sent, the part of the address to the right of the "@" sign is used to find the destination computer for that email 🦋

URL 🔗

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is commonly used to identify a computer that provides World Wide Web service 🕸️ It usually looks something like "http://www.newspaper.com". This address also has two parts, but in this case they're separated by the // 🙈 The part on the left means "find the World Wide Web service located at the computer identified on the right of the //." The part on the right is the name of the computer providing that web service 💻 Its name is made of pieces similar to the ones described for the name of an email computer. Sometimes the right-hand side also includes extra info that points to a particular document on the website 📄

For example, http://www.newspaper.com/sports/article1.html would identify a specific article in the sports section of the newspaper 🏆 Slay, that's the whole URL breakdown 💅✨

2.4. Are There Any Rules of Behavior on the Internet? 🎀

Okay so, there's no single official rulebook for how to act online 💅 It's basically common sense, courtesy, and decency, and honestly that's the whole vibe. FYI 28, which I mentioned earlier, is a great guide. Lots of places like game sites, chat rooms, or e-mail lists have their own rules too, and what's totally fine in one chat room can be totally out of bounds in another. It never hurts to check the water temperature before jumping in the pool 🏊‍♀️ Users should take the same precautions before joining any online activity.

E-mail especially can cause misunderstandings 😭 The reader only has your text to figure out what you're saying. There's no "tone of voice" and no winking, so people have developed cues to put in the text, like capitalization and symbols known as emoticons (also called "smilies") 🙈

                   A typical smiley looks like this  :-)

Acronyms have evolved too, like IMHO - In My Humble Opinion 🌸 You can learn more by searching. Try keywords like "netiquette" and "emoticon" in your search engine to find more info ✨

Also, your programs, like word processors or e-mail, might make documents and messages that not everyone can read 💀 Very often, a reader needs the same program the document was written in to open it. So before you send an attached document, make sure the intended receiver can actually read it. If you're not sure, send a text (ascii) version of the document 🫶

2.5. How Does the Internet Work? 🦋

Every single activity from the "what can I do on the Internet" section needs computers to swap information. They take turns sending and receiving 🔁 The computer sending the information is the "source," and the one receiving it is the "destination." (The same computer can be both at different times, which is super clear when you think about sending and receiving e-mail 📬)

Every computer on the Internet has its own unique Internet "address," so it can be told apart from millions of others 🧚 The Internet also has specialized computers between the source and destination, sitting at network inter-connection points. These are called "routers," and they understand how to use a computer's address to point information from one computer to another 🗺️

So in an exchange of information, this happens:

• The source finds the address of the destination.
• The source contacts the destination and says "hello".
• The destination responds back with a "hello" of its own.
• The source tells the destination that it has information to send.
• The destination tells the source that it is ready to receive the information.
• The source breaks the information into small pieces called packets and sends each packet on its way to the destination.
• The routers guide each packet to the destination.
• The destination takes the packets and puts them back together to form the information.
• The destination tells the source that it has received the information and asks the source if it has anything more to send.
• If the source says no, the destination will say "good bye" unless it has something to send back. If it does, it will break the information into packets and send them.
• Once both end users are done "talking", they say both say "good bye".

Okay, real talk: this simplified version skips a lot 🙈 It doesn't explain how a computer finds another computer's address, or how packets get divided up and reassembled. The good news is that people using the Internet never really need to deal with those details! 💖

2.6 Who Runs the Internet? 👑

No one! 🌈 The Internet is a cooperative effort between Internet Service Providers (ISPs), software companies, volunteer organizations, and a few facilities that tie everything together. The ISPs and software companies are completely independent, and most of them compete with each other 💅 ISPs provide internet service to people kind of the same way they get telephone service from a telephone company. They agree to connect their networks to each other and send information by following an established set of rules (protocols) 📡 Software companies agree to make programs, like email or web browsers, that also follow those protocols.

Other organizations keep things straight too 🍓 Some assign Internet addresses, kind of like how telephone numbers get assigned, and others keep track of the names used by Internet users and groups. And a big volunteer organization called the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops the protocols computers follow to make network communications succeed ⭐

---

3. Security Considerations 🔐

The question "is the Internet secure?" can be super confusing 😵‍💫 You'll hear tons of people promising it's secure, and then tons of scary stories saying it's not. There are a few basic rules of thumb that cover most concerns, so let's go through them 💜

First, make it a rule to never share your account passwords with anyone 🚫 Learning a password is the easiest way for someone to break into a system. Most people think their files aren't that interesting to anyone, but someone can get a foothold from one innocent account and move on to other places in the same computer system 👀 You can find lots of good security practices in the User's Security Handbook [FYI 34, RFC 2504].

Second, know that people can track the information a user sends by email, the files they download, and the sites they visit on the web 🕵️‍♀️ The system administrators and network engineers who look after a site's computers need access to information an individual might think of as secret. In practice, no responsible system administrator or network engineer will invade someone's privacy out of personal curiosity 🙅‍♀️ But if someone less legitimate gets illegal access to a system, they'll also have access to this information. For most people this isn't a big problem, but you should understand that things like an email sent a year ago, or a log of the web pages a user browsed, may still exist on some system's backup archive tape. They can be easily brought back and published widely 😱

Third, before you give personal information over the Internet, like filling in a form on a Web page, realize there is no assurance of confidentiality or privacy 🫣 It's kind of like faxing that information to a party you've never dealt with before 📠 Lots of organizations on the Internet handle information from the web and email responsibly, but that can't always be figured out in advance.

Bestie, this is the one to remember: the Internet doesn't promise you privacy by default, so think before you share 💅

4. References 📚

[1] Guttman, E., Leong, G. and G. Malkin, "Users' Security Handbook",
    FYI 34, RFC 2504, February 1999.

[2] Hambridge, S., "Netiquette Guidelines", FYI 28, RFC 1855, October
    1995.

5. Authors' Addresses 🖋️

The authors are listed below, with their details exactly as they appear in the original document.

Raymond Plzak
SAIC
1710 Goodridge Drive
McLean, Virginia 22102

Phone: (703) 821-6535
EMail: plzakr@saic.com


Amy Tracy Wells
Internet Scout Project
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Computer Sciences Department
1210 W. Dayton St.
Madison, WI 53706

Phone: (608)263-2611
EMail:  awel@cs.wisc.edu


Ed Krol
University of Illinois
1120 DCL
1304 Springfield
Urbana IL   61801

Phone (217)333-7886
EMail: krol@uiuc.edu

Appendix A 🧚

Glossary of Terms 🌷

Emoticon      Combination of punctuation marks used to provide sense
              of the senders tone of voice in an e-mail message

IETF          Internet Engineering Task Force [see text for a
              description]

Internet      An interconnected group of networks

ISP           Internet Service Provider [see text for a description]

Network       A connected group of computers

Router        A specialized computer that connects networks together
              and guides information packets to their destination

Spam          A slang term for junk e-mail

URL           Uniform Resource Locator [see text for a description]

Web Browser   A program that provides the capablility to read
              information that is located at a world wide web site

6. Full Copyright Statement ⚖️

Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved.

Okay, the legal bits, but I'll keep them accurate 🫶 This document and translations of it may be copied and shared with others. Derivative works that comment on or explain it, or help with implementing it, may be made, copied, published, and distributed, in whole or in part, with no restrictions, as long as the copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all copies and derivative works. The document itself, though, may not be modified in any way. That includes removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations. The exceptions are when it's needed for developing Internet standards, in which case the copyright procedures in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or when it's needed to translate it into languages other than English.

These limited permissions are perpetual, and the Internet Society or its successors or assigns won't revoke them 💜

This document and the information in it are provided on an "AS IS" basis, and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Acknowledgement 🌈

Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society ✨