We will delve into the fundamentals of how the internet works, providing a comprehensive overview for a complete understanding of this complex and ever-evolving technology.
I remember my dad explaining the internet to me when I was five years old:
Kiddo! The internet is like a big city where every computer is a house, and the internet cables are like the streets and roads connecting them. Like you can use the streets to get from one part of the city to another, you can use the internet to access information and communicate with people from all over the world.
The internet can be thought of as a vast city with numerous roads leading to various destinations around the world. In order to visit a specific location on the internet, you use your computer to connect to the appropriate road and navigate to the desired destination. To do this, your computer communicates with other computers to determine the route to take and then follows that route to reach the destination.
URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) are the addresses that humans use to access specific locations on the internet. They are made up of a combination of letters and numbers, and they usually begin with “http://” or “https://” followed by a domain name. Domains are easy for humans to remember and type into a web browser, which is why they are used so commonly.
Computers, on the other hand, prefer to use IP addresses to access specific locations on the internet. An IP address is a numerical label assigned to each device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses are made up of a series of numbers separated by periods, and they allow computers to communicate with each other by sending data back and forth between their IP addresses.
While humans find it more convenient to use URLs, computers can more easily communicate with each other using IP addresses. That’s why, behind the scenes, URLs are translated into IP addresses by DNS servers when you enter a URL into your web browser. The DNS server acts like a phone book for the internet, containing a list of all the URLs for various locations and their corresponding addresses, known as IP addresses.
Internet censorship often begins with DNS query filtering. This process involves blocking or redirecting DNS queries for specific websites or internet addresses. When a user attempts to access a censored website, the DNS query for that website is intercepted and either blocked or redirected to a different location. This prevents the user from reaching the intended website and effectively censors their access to certain information on the internet.
DNS query filtering is a common method of censorship because it is relatively easy to implement and can be difficult for users to bypass.
