ECOM6013 How the Internet works?

(8:45)
E-Commerce Technologies (2024-25)

Topic 2

Internet and E-Commerce

Infrastructure

Paul Cheung
[email protected]

1 Slide 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3c1ih2NJEg

Learning Objectives The Internet: Technology Background

n Understand the basic network protocols and — Internet

infrastructure of the Internet — Interconnected network of thousands of networks
and millions of computers
n Understand how the Web works, its architecture and — Links businesses, educational institutions,
languages government agencies, and individuals
n Study some of the applications on the Internet and — World Wide Web (Web)
WWW, and appreciate the potentials and limitations
— One of the Internet’s most popular services
Related Module: — Provides access to billions, possibly trillions, of web
ICOM6012 Internet Infrastructure Technologies pages
Reading Assignment:
Chapter 3 of the textbook
Slide 3

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The Evolution of the Internet The Internet:
1961 – Present
Key Technology Concepts
— Innovation Phase, 1961–1974
v Creation of fundamental building blocks n Internet defined as network that:
— Institutionalization Phase, 1975–1995
— Uses IP addressing
v Large institutions provide funding and legitimization — Supports TCP/IP protocol
— Provides services to users, in manner similar to
— Commercialization Phase, 1995–present telephone system
v Private corporations take over, expand Internet backbone
and local service n Three important concepts:
— Packet switching
— TCP/IP communications protocol
— Client/server computing

Success of Internet due to => International standard

Slide 5 Slide 6

Packet Switching Packet Switching

n Slices digital messages into packets
n Sends packets along different communication
paths as they become available
n Reassembles packets once they arrive at
destination
n Uses routers
— Special purpose computers that interconnect the computer
networks that make up the Internet and route packets
— Routing algorithms ensure packets take the best available
path toward their destination

n Less expensive, wasteful than circuit-switching

Packet switching in radio channels: Part I-carrier sense multiple-access modes
and their throughput-delay characteristics Slide 7 Slide 8
L Kleinrock, F Tobagi - IEEE transactions on Communications, 1975
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 TCP/IP Protocol Suite (1) TCP/IP Protocol Suite (2)
• Four TCP/IP layers
• Large family of protocols named after its most important – Network interface layer:
members: TCP and IP
§ Places packets on and receives them from network
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) medium
– Establishes connections among sending and receiving – Internet layer
Web computers; handles assembly of packets at point of § Addresses, packages, and routes messages
transmission, and reassembly at receiving end
– Transport layer
• Internet Protocol (IP) § Communication with other protocols in TCP/IP suite
– Provides addressing scheme; responsible for delivery of § TCP, UDP, and QUIC
packets
– Application layer
• Uniform Data Protocol (UDP) § Protocols used to provide user services or exchange
– Provides alternative to TCP when error-checking, data
correction functionality not necessary (faster for low § BGP, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc.
delay communication e.g. video streaming)

Internet (IP) Addresses

The TCP/IP Architecture and Protocol Suite
n IPv4
— 32-bit number
— Four sets of numbers marked off by periods:
201.61.186.227
n Class C address: Network identified by first three
sets, computer identified by last set

n IPv6
— 128-bit addresses, able to handle up to 1 quadrillion
addresses ≈ 3.4×1038 (estimated # of grains of
sands – order of 1020!)
(IPv4 can handle only 4 billion)

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 Routing Internet Messages: TCP/IP and Packet Video: Introduction to TCP/IP (4:20)
Switching

Figure 3.5
Slide 13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpsEaqJV_A0
Slide 14

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IP Address, Domain Name Server (DNS) and

Domain Names, DNS, and URLs Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) (2:00)

— Domain name
Ø IP address expressed in natural language
— Domain name system (DNS)
Ø Allows numeric IP addresses to be expressed in natural language
— Uniform resource locator (URL)
Ø Address used by Web browser to identify location of content on
the Web
Ø For example: https://www.ecom-icom.hku.hk
— Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
Ø A network protocol that helps us to assign an IP address and
related IP information to the devices (e.g. servers, desktops, or
mobile equipment) in the network.
Take home exercises:
a) read the short article about DHCP vs DNS on Moodle
b) find out the differences between http:// and https://
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTT_0t9qGDY (Cloud Academy) Slide 16

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 How Does DHCP Work? (3:50)
Client/Server Computing

— Model of computing in which client

devices are connected in a network
together with one or more servers

— Clients: various types of devices

that can request access to services
or resources
— Servers perform common
functions for the clients
— Storing files
— Software applications
— Access to printers, and so on Figure 3.7
— Edge Computing
Slide 18
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldtUSSZJCGg (Teltonika) Slide 17

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The Internet “Cloud Computing” Model

The Mobile Platform — Firms and individuals obtain Read more:
computing power and software over https://www.bmc.com/blogs/saas-
— Primary Internet access is now through tablets and Internet vs-paas-vs-iaas-whats-the-
smartphones — Three types of services
difference-and-how-to-choose/

• Infrastructure as a service (I a a S)
— Tablets supplement PCs for mobile situations • Software as a service (S a a S)
— 1.28 B tablet users worldwide (2021 estimated) • Platform as a service (P a a S)
— Public, private, and hybrid clouds
— Smartphones are a disruptive technology
— Radically reduces costs of:
— 6.4B smart phones subscribers worldwide (2022) • Building and operating Web sites
— New processors and operating systems • Infrastructure, IT support
— 5.18B Internet users worldwide (April 2023) • Hardware, software
Figure 3.8
— ~ 260 million in U.S. access Internet with smartphones — Drawbacks
(~1,030 million in China) in 2022 • Security risks
• Shifts responsibility for storage and
Ref: Statista (2022) control to providers
(Example of Obama, using Blackberry of RIM!)
Slide 20

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The Hourglass
Internet Infrastructure Model of the
— Internet has been able to grow exponentially without Internet
disruption because of: Communication
— Client/server computing model (this is the key –
— Architecture built in layers that can be changed the layer model! )
independently
— Network Technology Substrate
— Transport Services and Representation Standards
— Middleware Services
— Applications

Problems of lack of standard Figure 3.9 22

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Internet Network Architecture

The Internet Backbone
— Comprised of fiber-optic cable: hundreds of glass strands that
use light to transmit data
— Faster speeds and greater bandwidth
— Thinner, lighter cables
— Less interference
— Better data security
— Tier 1 Internet Service Providers (Tier 1 ISPs) or transit ISPs
— Numerous private networks physically connected to each other
— Undersea fiber optics, satellite links
Figure 3.10

Slide 23

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International Internet Capacity & Bandwidth

Internet Exchange Points (IXPs)
— Regional hubs where Tier 1 ISPs physically connect with
one another and with regional Tier 2 ISPs.

— Tier 2 ISPs provide Tier 3 ISPs with Internet access.

— Originally called Network Access Points (NAPs) or

Metropolitan Area Exchanges (MAEs).

— Examples of Tier 1 IXPs in Hong Kong

• International bandwidth usage in 2022 reached a worldwide total of 997 Tbit/s,

up from 719 Tbit/s in 2020. This is a 40% increase in 2 years, and it follows a
similar increase to that of the previous years.
• The highest regional total for international bandwidth use is in the Asia-Pacific
region at over 442 Tbit/s, more than twice as high as in Europe (195 Tbit/s) or the
Americas (224 Tbit/s). Slide 25
Source: ITU (2022)

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Tier 3 Internet Service Providers Campus/Corporate Area Networks

— Retail providers — Local area networks operating within single organization,
— Lease Internet access to homeowners, small businesses such as HKU, CLP, Cyberport or Microsoft Corporation
— Large providers: Comcast, AT&T, Verizon (in US); HKT/PCCW,
Hutchison Telecom; HK Broadband etc (in HK) — Lease Internet access directly from regional and national
— New trend is for mobile operator to provide Home Broadband carriers
using 5G mobile networks (e.g. SmarTone)
— Smaller local providers (in most countries)
— Services
— Narrowband – nearly does not exist
— Broadband
— Digital subscriber line (D SL)
— Cable Internet
— Satellite Internet
— Mobile 5G network

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Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) -

Mobile Internet Access Based Internet Access
— Two basic types of wireless Internet access: — Wi-Fi (various IEEE 802.11 standards)
— Telephone-based (mobile phones, smartphones) — High-speed, fixed broadband wireless LAN (WLAN)
— Computer network-based (wireless local area network- — Wireless access point (“hot spots”)
based) or WiFi. — Limited range but inexpensive

— Telephone-based wireless Internet access — WiMax: 802.16 standard; used for medium-range, broadband
wireless metropolitan area networks
— Currently based on 4G and 5G technologies
— 5G: very high-bandwidth broadband; speeds reaching 10 — Bluetooth: technology standard for short-range wireless
Gbps or more communication within a 30-foot distance (BLE for low power)
— Uses new part of wireless spectrum and tens of — Zigbee – for sensors and IoT applications
thousands of small-cell and distributed antenna systems
— Expected to enable many innovative products. services — Low-power WAN – LoRaWan for wide-area network operation

Modem, Router, Switch & Access Point Modem, Routers, Switches & Access Points (4:10)

Source: www.baeldung.com/cs/

Slide 31 Slide 32
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc16CCAAz7Q&t=69s (Techquickie)
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Wi-Fi Networks Wifi 5 vs Wifi 6

Figure 3.12 33 Reference: https://www.tp-link.com/hk/wifi6/ (TP-Link)

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Intranets
Wifi-6 Explained (2 min)
n Intranet
— TCP/IP network located within a single organization
for communications and processing

— Used by private and government organizations for

internal networks

— All Internet applications can be used in private

intranets

Slide 36

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Limitations of the Current Internet

The Internet of Things (IOT)
n Bandwidth limitations
• Objects connected via sensors/RFID to the Internet — Slow peak-hour service
• Being enabled by: n Quality of service limitations
– Availability of low-cost sensors — Latency
– Drop in price of data storage
n Network architecture limitations
– Development of big data analytics software
— Identical requests are processed individually
– Implementation of IPv6
• Powering development of “smart” connected things
n Wired Internet
— Copper and expensive fiber-optic cables
• Interoperability issues and standards
• Security and privacy concerns
Slide 38

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Who Governs the Internet? The Web

• Organizations that influence the Internet and monitor its operations — 1989–1991: Web invented
include: — Tim Berners-Lee at CERN
– Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (I CANN)
— HTML, HTTP, web server, web browser
– Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
– Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) — 1993: Mosaic web browser w/GUI
– Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) — Andreessen and others at NCSA
– Internet Architecture Board (IAB)
— Runs on Windows, Macintosh, or Unix
– Internet Society (ISOC)
– Internet Governance Forum (IGF) — 1994: Netscape Navigator, first commercial web browser
– World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
– Internet Network Operators Groups (N OGs)
— 1995: Microsoft Internet Explorer

More information - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_governance

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Hypertext Markup Languages

— Text formatted with embedded links — Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
— Links connect documents to one another, and to other — Fixed set of pre-defined markup “tags” used to format text
objects such as sound, video, or animation files — Controls look and feel of web pages
— Used in conjunction with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
— Uses HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and URLs to
locate resources on the Web — HTML5 the newer version
— eXtensible Markup Language (XML)
— Example UR L:
— Designed to describe data and information
https://www.ecom-icom.hku.hk/
— Tags used are defined by user
https://www.hku.hk

HTML, CSS and Javascript Explained (3:29) HTML and HTML5 (3:43)

Additional reading: “Difference between HTML & HTML5

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT0Lh1eYk78 (Danielle Thé) 43 https://www.differencebtw.com/difference-between-html-and-html5/ Slide 44

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Web Browsers
Web Servers and Web Clients
— Web server software
— Enables a computer to deliver web pages to clients on a network
that request this service by sending an HTTP request
— Primary purpose is to display web
— Basic capabilities: HTTP, security services (TLS), file transfer, page, but may include added
search engine, data capture, e-mail, site management tools features
— Google’s Chrome: more than
— Web server 72.8% of both the desktop
— May refer to either web server software or physical server and mobile market
(Open source)
— Specialized servers: Database servers, ad servers, media server
— Apple’s Safari: 13.5%
Source: https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php (July 2023)
— Web client — MicroSoft Internet
Explorer/Edge: 2.7% of
— Any computing device attached to the Internet that is capable of desktop
making HTTP requests and displaying HTML pages — Mozilla Firefox: 2.5%
desktop, (Open source)
— Opera: 1.2 % Slide 46

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The Internet and Web: Features Communication Tools

— Features on which the foundations of e-commerce are — E-mail
built: — Most used application of the Internet
— Communication tools
— Messaging Applications
— Search engines
— Instant messaging
— Downloadable and streaming media
— Web 2.0 applications and services — Online message boards
— Web 3.0
— Internet telephony
— Virtual reality and augmented reality
— V O IP
— Intelligent digital assistants
— Video conferencing, video chatting, telepresence

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 49 We may skip this in lecture to save time

How Google Works

Search Engines (1/2)
— Identify web pages that match queries based on one or more techniques
— Keyword indexes
— Page ranking

— Also serve as:

— Shopping tools
— Advertising vehicles (search engine marketing)
— Tool within e-commerce sites

— Top three providers in US: Google, Bing, Yahoo

— In China: Baidu

— AI Chatbots - ChatGPT and equivalent around the world - will present a huge
challenge to all search engines

— Companies in China is in a rush to upgrade its AI Chatbot including: Baidu (Ernie), § Figure 3.16a
Huawei (Wenxin), Alibaba (Tongyi Qianwen), Tencent (Xiaowei) etc
(The challenge is to make these multi-langagues, at least Chinese and English).

How Google Works How Google Search Works (3:14)

Cheetah Running Speed : 10M in 0.47s
(2/2) (search performed on 21 Aug 2023 at 11:30 am HKT)

§ Figure 3.16b

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Downloadable and Streaming Media Web 2.0 Features and Services

— Downloads: — Online Social Networks

— Growth in broadband connections enables large media — Services that support communication among networks of
file downloads friends, peers

— Streaming technologies — Blogs

— Enables music, video, and other large files to be sent — Personal web page of chronological entries
to users in chunks so that the file can play — Enables web page publishing with no knowledge of HTML
uninterrupted — Wikis
— Podcasting — Enables documents to be written collectively and
collaboratively
— Explosion in online video viewing (especially during Covid) — E.g. Wikipedia

Web3 or Web3.0 Web3.0 Explained (5:25)

• Still at a conceptual stages; does not yet exist
• New kind of Internet service conceived as being built using
blockchain
• Proponents envision it as being much more decentralized than
the current Web environment; controlled by creators and users
rather than Big Tech companies
• Critics
– Doubt that blockchain technology can handle the amount
of data that is processed on Web
– Argue that centralized services would be required,
defeating the central purpose of Web3

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tZFQs7qBfQ (simplilearn)

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Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Metaverse

— Virtual reality (VR) • Metaverse
— Immersing users within virtual world – Immersive, visual 3-D virtual reality in which users
— Typically uses head-mounted display (HMD) can connect, socialize, and collaborate
— Oculus Rift, Vive, PlayStation VR – Facebook has rebranded as Meta
— Augmented reality (AR)
– Tremendous hype

— Overlaying virtual objects over the real world, via

– Currently being used for gaming and advertising
mobile devices or HMDs – Many companies are working on metaverse-related
projects
— Pokémon GO “fever” (quick rise and fall in 2016)
— Mixed reality (enhanced AR)

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Intelligent Digital Assistants Mobile Apps

— Computer search engine using: — Use of mobile apps has exploded

— Natural language (ChatGPT and equivalent) — Most popular entertainment media, over TV
— Conversational interface, verbal commands
— Always present shopping tool
— Situational awareness
— Almost all top 100 brands have an app
— Can handle requests for appointments, flights, routes, event
scheduling, and more. — Platforms
— Examples: — iPhone/iPad (iOS), Android, and HarmonyOS
— Apple’s Siri
— Amazon Alexa — App marketplaces
— Google Assistant — Google Play, Apple’s App Store etc
— Xiaomi – Xiao Ai Platform (小愛)

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