The Internet Book: Everything You Need to Know about Computer Networking and How the Internet Works

Citation

Comer, D. E. (2018). The Internet Book: Everything You Need to Know about Computer Networking and How the Internet Works (5th ed.). Chapman & Hall (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis).

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition has 34 short chapters, about 400 pages with 102 colour illustrations according to the publisher. The publisher describes four sections: communication-system concepts and terminology; the history and growth of the Internet; basic Internet technology, meaning how the hardware is organised and how software provides communication; and the application services available on the Internet, explaining for each what it offers and how it works. The chapter titles follow that plan, and the book closes with economics and a vision of a global digital library. Comer is a Purdue professor who took part in the Internet research project from the late 1970s and served on the Internet Architecture Board; he says he wrote the book for people who wanted an explanation that is technically correct and easy to understand.

Chapters 1–6: The Internet is Everywhere; Telephones Everywhere; The World Was Once Analog; The Past and Present Digital Network; Basic Communication; Local Area Networks

The opening section introduces the concepts and vocabulary of communication systems. After a first chapter on how pervasive the Internet has become, the titles trace the telephone system, analog communication and the digital network, then basic communication and local area networks.

Chapters 7–8: Internet: Motivation and Beginnings; The Incredible Growth

The historical section: why the Internet was created and how rapidly it grew. The publisher says it documents the pace of the digital revolution and gives background for appreciating the significance of the Internet's underlying design.

Chapters 9–12: Packet Switching; Internet: A Network of Networks; Internet Access Using Broadband and Wireless; Internet Performance

The technology section begins with the central ideas: dividing data into packets, joining many networks into one, the broadband and wireless technologies that connect homes and devices, and what determines how fast the Internet seems.

Chapters 13–18: IP: Software to Create a Virtual Network; TCP: Software for Reliable Communication; Clients, Servers, and Internet Services; Names for Computers; Sharing an Internet Connection (NAT); Why the Internet Works Well

The software that makes the Internet work: IP, which makes many networks behave as one virtual network; TCP, which provides reliable delivery; the client-server model of services; names for computers; network address translation for sharing one connection; and a closing chapter on why the design works well. The publisher presents this section as the foundation for the chapters that follow and as a help in asking good questions about products and services offered by salespeople.

Chapters 19–23: Electronic Mail; The World Wide Web: Browsers and Basics; The World Wide Web: HTML and Web Pages; The World Wide Web: Web Pages that Change; Social Networking and Personal Publishing

The application section opens with email and three chapters on the web, from browsers through HTML pages to pages that change, then social networking and personal publishing.

Chapters 24–29: The Internet of Things (IOT); Internet Search (Search Engines); Voice and Video Communication (VOIP); File Transfer and Data Sharing; Remote Desktop; Cloud Services and Cloud Computing

Further services: connected devices, search engines, voice and video calls, file transfer and sharing, remote desktop access and cloud computing.

Chapters 30–32: Network Security (Encryption and Firewalls); Security Scams: Fooling Users; Secure Access from a Distance (VPNs)

Security for ordinary users: encryption and firewalls, scams that deceive users, and virtual private networks. The publisher highlights advice on avoiding scams and exaggerated marketing claims.

Chapters 33–34: Internet Economics and Electronic Commerce; A Global Digital Library

The book ends by looking at the economics of the Internet and online commerce, and at the Internet as a global library of information.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–8: Communication and History

• Analog and digital communication: two ways of representing and sending information, traced through the history of the telephone network.
• Local area network: a network connecting computers within a limited area.
• The Internet's growth: the rapid expansion from a research project to a global system.

Chapters 9–18: How the Internet Works

• Packet switching: dividing data into packets that share the network, the idea behind the Internet's design.
• Network of networks: the Internet as many separate networks joined together.
• IP: the software that makes interconnected networks act as a single virtual network.
• TCP: the software that turns unreliable packet delivery into reliable communication.
• Client-server model: services provided by server programs to client programs.
• Domain names and NAT: names for computers, and sharing one Internet connection among many devices.

Chapters 19–34: Services and Society

• The World Wide Web: browsers, HTML pages and pages that change.
• Internet of Things and cloud computing: connected devices and services provided from remote data centres.
• Encryption, firewalls and VPNs: basic protections for users and their communication.
• Scams: deception aimed at users rather than at machines.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Written for non-specialists by an Internet pioneer. The publisher states that the book is for readers without a strong technical background and that early chapters explain the necessary terminology; Comer's own involvement in building the Internet gives authority to the explanations. Adam R. Albina of Saint Anselm College, quoted by the publisher, calls it a thorough but non-technical introduction that uses everyday examples and analogy to make the subject accessible to readers with no technology background.
• Mechanism and service together. For each service the book explains both what it offers and how it works, so readers learn about TCP and IP and then see them at work in email, the web and video calls.
• History as explanation. Two chapters on the Internet's motivation and growth, plus the chapters on telephones and analog communication, explain why the design looks the way it does rather than presenting it as a given.
• Short, self-contained chapters. With 34 chapters in about 400 pages, chapters average about a dozen pages, and the application chapters, each devoted to one service, lend themselves to selective reading.

Limitations

• Conceptual, not technical. The book does not set out to teach protocol formats, algorithms or performance analysis; a networking course will need a full textbook for that.
• Dated in places. Published in 2018, the edition cannot reflect later changes in services, security threats or access technologies; the history chapters age well, but the chapters on specific services should be read with that in mind.
• Breadth of services over depth. Sixteen of the 34 chapters cover applications and their social context, while the table of contents has no separate chapter on routing, one of the central topics of a technical course.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the gentlest entry to the networks course: a conceptual map of the whole Internet for readers who have never studied networking. Forouzan's Data Communications and Networking with TCP/IP Protocol Suite is the full introductory textbook, working layer by layer from the physical layer upward with much more technical detail; reading Comer first, or alongside it, helps students place each layer in the larger picture. Kurose and Ross's Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach and Tanenbaum, Feamster and Wetherall's Computer Networks are the standard undergraduate textbooks that assume some programming background.

Fall and Stevens's TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, which explains the protocols through real packet traces, and Varghese and Xu's Network Algorithmics, a graduate text on fast network implementation, lie far beyond this book. Comer is not a substitute for any of these in a technical course, but it is a good first read before them and a useful reference for students from other fields who take a single networking module.

How to Use This Book

The book suits beginning computing students before a first networking course, students in information systems, business or other fields who need to understand the Internet without engineering detail, and general readers. It assumes only everyday familiarity with computers and the web.

• For a technical course: read Chapters 9–18 first and carefully; they cover packet switching, IP, TCP, names and NAT, the ideas that a full textbook then develops. Add Chapters 5–6 for basic communication and LANs.
• For a general or non-specialist course: read in order. The history in Chapters 2–8 makes the later design easier to appreciate.
• Choose among the services: Chapters 19–34 can be read selectively according to interest; Chapters 30–32 on security are worth reading for everyone.

Read actively by connecting each chapter to tools you already use: look at your own network settings while reading about addresses and NAT, or watch a web page load while reading the web chapters. Students going on to a technical course should note questions as they read and look for the answers in the protocol chapters of Forouzan or Kurose and Ross.