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RFC 1578                 FYI Q/A - for Schools             February 1994

APPENDIX C:  GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED IN THIS DOCUMENT

   The following is a short glossary of terms used in this document.
   For a more complete glossary of Internet terms, refer to FYI 18 (RFC
   1392), "Internet Users' Glossary".  These definitions are largely
   excerpted from that glossary.  (See Section 8, "Suggested Reading",
   above.)

   Anonymous FTP

      Accessing data via the File Transfer Protocol using the special
      username "anonymous".  This was devised as a method to provide a
      relatively secure way of providing restricted access to public
      data.  Users who wish to acquire data from a public source may use
      FTP to connect to the source, then use the special username
      "anonymous" and their email address as the password to log into a
      public data area.

   Cracker

      A person who uses computer knowledge to attempt to gain access to
      computer systems and/or maliciously damage those systems or data.

   Dial-in (also dial-up)

      A connection, usually made via modems, between two computers (or
      servers) over standard voice grade telephone lines.

   Download

      To copy data from a remote computer to a local computer.  The
      opposite of upload.

   DSU/CSU (Data Service Unit/Channel Service Unit)

      The digital equivalent of a modem.  A Channel Service Unit
      connects to a telephone company-provided digital data circuit, and
      a Data Service Unit provides the electronics required to connect
      digital equipment to the CSU.  Paired together a DSU/CSU allows
      computer equipment to be connected into the telephone digital
      service for highly conditioned, high speed data communications.

   Electronic Bulletin Board System (BBS)

      A computer, and associated software, which typically provides
      electronic messaging services, archives of files, and any other
      services or activities of interest to the bulletin board system's
      operator.  Although BBSs have traditionally been the domain of

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      hobbyists, an increasing number of BBSs are connected directly to
      the Internet, and many BBSs are currently operated by government,
      educational, and research institutions.

   EMail (Electronic Mail)

      A system whereby a computer user can exchange messages with other
      computer users (or groups of users) via a communications network.

   FidoNet

      A network of computers interconnected using the FIDO dial-up
      protocols.  The FIDO protocol provides a means of "store and
      forward" file transfer similar to UUCP.

   FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

      A protocol which allows a user on one host to access, and transfer
      files to and from, another host over a network.  Also, FTP is
      usually the name of the program the user invokes to execute the
      protocol.

   FYI (For Your Information)

      A subseries of RFCs that are not technical standards or
      descriptions of protocols.  FYIs convey general information about
      topics related to TCP/IP or the Internet.  See also:  RFC (Request
      for Comments).

   Gopher

      A distributed information service that links many types of
      information from all around the Internet and presents it to the
      user in a series of menus.  Because hundreds of Gopher servers
      cooperate in providing access to information and services, the
      user sees a single, uniform interface to information that actually
      resides on different host computers.  The Gopher interface is very
      easy to use, and public domain versions of the clients and servers
      are available.

   Hacker

      A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the
      internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in
      particular.  The popular media has corrupted this term to give it
      the pejorative connotation of a person who maliciously uses
      computer knowledge to cause damage to computers and data.  The
      proper term for this type of person is "cracker".

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   Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

      The IETF is a large, open community of network designers,
      operators, vendors, and researchers whose purpose is to coordinate
      the operation, management and evolution of the Internet, and to
      resolve short-range and mid-range protocol and architectural
      issues.  It is a major source of protocol proposals and standards.

   InterNIC

      A Network Information Center (NIC), funded by the National Science
      foundation, that provides information about the Internet.  The
      InterNIC is a team of three contractors, each of which focuses on
      a particular network support task.  The three tasks are:
      Information Services (the task most often cited in this document),
      Registration Services, and Directory and Database Services.

   Kbs (Kilo-Bits per Second)

      A data transmission rate expressed in 1000 bit per second units.
      For example, 56Kbs is 56*1000=56,000 bits per second.

   LAN (Local Area Network)

      A data network intended to serve an area of only a few square
      kilometers or less.  Since such are networks relatively small they
      can usually be directly controlled by the users and operate at
      relatively high speeds (up to 100Mb/s [10 million bits per
      second]) over inexpensive wiring.

   Leased line

      A leased line is a special phone company permanent connection
      between two locations.  Leased lines are generally used where
      high-speed data (usually 960 characters per second and higher) is
      continually exchanged between two computers (in the Internet,
      generally between routers).  A leased line is billed at the same
      rate per month independent of how much the line is used and can be
      cheaper than using dial modems depending on the usage.  Leased
      lines may also be used where higher data rates are needed beyond
      what a dial modem can provide.

   Listserv (mailing list server)

      An automated program that accepts mail messages from users and
      performs basic operations on mailing lists for those users.  In
      the Internet, listservs are usually accessed as "listname@host";
      for example, the list server for the hypothetical list

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      "newsreports@acme.org" would be called "listserv@acme.org".
      Sending email to "newsreports@acme.org" causes the message to be
      sent to all the list subscribers, while sending a message (to
      subscribe or unsubscribe, for example) to "listserv@acme.org"
      sends the message only to the list server.  Not all mailing lists
      use list servers to handle list administration duties.

   Mailing Lists

      A list of email addresses.  Generally, a mailing list is used to
      discuss certain set of topics, and different mailing lists discuss
      different topics.  A mailing list may be moderated, that is
      messages sent to the list are actually sent to a moderator who
      determines whether or not to send the messages on to everyone
      else.  Many mailing lists are maintained by a "listserv" (list
      server) program that automatically handles operations such as
      adding new people to the list.  (See above.)  In the Internet, for
      those mailing lists maintained by a human, rather than by a
      listserv, you can generally subscribe to a list by sending a mail
      message to: "listname-REQUEST@host" and in the body of the message
      enter a request to subscribe.  To send messages to other
      subscribers, you will then use the address "listname@host".

   Modem (MODulator/DEModulator)

      A device that converts the digital signals used by computers into
      analog signals needed by voice telephone systems.  Modems can be
      "dial" or "leased line" type.  Dial type modems are used on normal
      telephone lines to call remote computers, and usually operate at
      speeds between 120 to 1,920 characters per second.

   Network Access Provider (Network Service Provider)

      Any organization that provides network connectivity or dial-up
      access.  Service providers may be corporations, government
      agencies, universities, or other organizations.

   Network News

      Another name for "Usenet News".

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   NIC (Network Information Center)

      A central place where information about a network within the
      Internet is maintained.  Usually NICs are staffed by personnel who
      answer user telephone calls and electronic mail, and provide
      general network usage information and referrals, among other
      possible tasks.  Most network service providers also provide a NIC
      for their users.

   Port

      TCP/IP assigns at least one address to a host computer, but
      applications such as FTP must talk to a corresponding server
      application on the host.  The "port" is the way TCP/IP designates
      the remote application.  Most common Internet servers have
      specific port numbers associated with them.  For example, Telnet
      uses port number 23.  These are known as "well known ports" and
      allow application programmers to write standard applications (such
      as Telnet, FTP, etc.) that "know" where the corresponding server
      is on a particular host.

   PPP  (Point to Point Protocol)

      A protocol used to establish TCP/IP connections using serial lines
      such as dial-up telephone lines.  Similar to SLIP (see below), PPP
      is a later standard that includes features such as demand dial-up,
      compression, better flow control, etc.

   Protocol

      A formal description of message formats and the rules two
      computers must follow to exchange those messages.  Protocols can
      describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g.,
      the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or
      high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in
      which two programs transfer a file across the Internet).

   Protocol Stack

      A series of protocols linked together to provide an end-to-end
      service.  For example, the File Transfer Protocol uses the
      Transmission Control Protocol, which uses the Internet Protocol,
      which may use the Point to Point protocol, to transfer a file from
      one computer to another.  The series FTP->TCP->IP->PPP is called a
      protocol stack.

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   RFC (Request for Comments)

      The document series, begun in 1969, which describes the Internet
      suite of protocols and related experiments.  Not all (in fact very
      few) RFCs describe Internet standards, but all Internet standards
      are written up as RFCs.  The RFCs include the documentary record
      of the Internet standards process.

   Router

      A computer which forwards traffic between networks.  The
      forwarding decision is based on network layer information and
      routing tables, often constructed by routing protocols.

   SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol)

      A protocol used to establish TCP/IP connections using serial lines
      such as dial-up telephone lines.  Small computers, such as PCs and
      Macintoshes, can use SLIP to dial up to servers, which then allow
      the computer to act as a full Internet node.  SLIP is generally
      used at sites with a few users as a cheaper alternative than a
      full Internet connection.  SLIP is being replaced by PPP at many
      sites.

   TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)

      TCP/IP is named for two of the major communications protocols used
      within the Internet (TCP and IP).  These protocols (along with
      several others) provide the basic foundation for communications
      between hosts in the Internet.  All of the service protocols, such
      as FTP, Telnet, Gopher, use TCP/IP to transfer information.

   Telnet

      Telnet is the Internet standard protocol for remote terminal
      connection service.  The name "telnet" also is used to refer to
      programs that allow interactive access to remote computers, as
      well as the action of using said programs.  For example, the
      phrase "Telnet to host xyzzy." means to interactively log into
      host "xyzzy" from some other host in the Internet.

   Upload

      To copy data from a local computer to a remote computer.  The
      opposite of download.

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RFC 1578                 FYI Q/A - for Schools             February 1994

   Usenet News

      An electronic bulletin board system created originally by the Unix
      community and which is accessible via the Internet.  Usenet News
      forms a discussion forum accessible by millions of users in almost
      every country in the world.  Usenet News consists of thousands of
      topics arranged in a heirarchical form.  Major topics include
      "comp" for computer topics, "rec" for recreational topics, "soc"
      for social topics, "sci" for science topics, etc.  Within the
      major topics are subtopics, such as "rec.music.classical" for
      classical music, or "sci.med.physics" for discussions relating to
      the physics of medical science.

   UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy)

      This was initially a program run under the UNIX operating system
      that allowed one UNIX system to send files to another UNIX system
      via dial-up phone lines.  Today, the term is more commonly used to
      describe the large international network which uses the UUCP
      protocol to pass news and electronic mail.

   Virus

      A program which replicates itself on computer systems by
      incorporating itself into other programs which are shared among
      computer systems.

   WAIS (Wide Area Information Server)

      A distributed information service which offers simple natural
      language input, indexed searching for fast retrieval, and a
      "relevance feedback" mechanism which allows the results of initial
      searches to influence future searches.  Public domain
      implementations are available.

   WWW (World Wide Web)

      A hypertext-based, distributed information system created by
      researchers at CERN in Switzerland.  Users may create, edit or
      browse hypertext documents.  The clients and servers are freely
      available.  The WWW servers are interconnected to allow a user to
      traverse the Web from any starting point; in addition, many other
      servers such as WAIS and Gopher have been incorporated into the
      WWW servers.

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