KS3 · Computer Science
Internet vs World Wide Web
Quick question: when you send an email from your phone's email app, are you using the web? Most people say yes. It's no — so let's find out why.
Computer Science · Structure
The internet, and the services riding on it
Tap each part. Is it part of the network that carries data — or a service that uses it?
Tap any part of the diagram to see what it does.
Computing · Networks
Network, or service?
Where does each one belong? Pick an item, then a column.
Still to sort
The internet (0)
The network that carries the data
Where the line is: If it carries data — a device, a link, a network — it belongs to the internet, whatever is travelling on it.
The World Wide Web (0)
A service that uses the internet
Where the line is: If its job is web pages — storing them, sending them or showing them — it belongs to the web.
Another internet service (0)
A different service that uses the internet
Where the line is: It uses the same network as the web, but it has nothing to do with web pages.
Commit first, then read why. The web server is the one to think hardest about.
Computing · Packets
One message, three packets
Step through what happens to a message on its way across the internet.
Predict before you step: if the packets arrive in the wrong order, how will Computer B know the right order?
Message: Meet me at the park at 6
Output
Step 1: Computer A has a message for Computer B. It isn't sent as one lump: it's broken up into small chunks called packets.
Press Next to follow the message, and watch the header values change.
WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED
A quick recap of today's lesson.
One is the network that carries the data. The other is just one of the services that travels on it.
What you need to know
- The internet is a network of connected networks: the devices and links that carry data between computers all over the world.
- The World Wide Web is a service that runs on top of the internet: web pages and other resources, stored on web servers and viewed with web browsers.
- The internet and the web are not the same thing. Other services, such as email, use the internet without being part of the web.
- To load a page, your browser sends a message to the web server asking for the page's data; the server sends the data back and the browser displays it.
- Data crosses the internet in packets. Each packet has a header (source address, destination address, total number of packets, sequence number) and a payload (the data itself).
- Packets from one message may take different routes and arrive in any order; the receiver reassembles them using their sequence numbers.
- HTTP and HTTPS are protocols for requesting and sending web pages. HTTPS encrypts the data, so an attacker who intercepts it can't read it.
The big picture
The internet is a network of connected networks: the devices and links that carry data around the world. The World Wide Web is one service running on top of it — web pages stored on web servers and viewed in browsers — and email is another. Loading a page is a request and a response between your browser and a web server. The data travels in packets that can take different routes and are reassembled using sequence numbers, and HTTPS encrypts that data so an interceptor can't read it.
Key points
Worked example
Problem
Aisha reads a news web page on her tablet, then sends her cousin an email from her email app. Which of these used the internet, and which used the web?
⚠ Watch out
Using 'the internet' and 'the web' as if they mean the same thing. The internet is the network that carries the data; the web is only one of the services that uses it.
Memory hook
Roads and traffic: the internet is the roads, the web is one kind of traffic on them — and email is another.
Check yourself
Picture clicking a link to an https page: what does your browser ask for, who answers, how does the data travel, and why can't an interceptor read it?
Flashcards
(15)What is the internet?
What is the World Wide Web?
Name a service that uses the internet but isn't part of the web.
What does a web server do?
What does a web browser do?
You click a link. What does your browser do next?
What is a packet?
What are the two parts of a packet?
What four things are in a packet's header?
What is a packet's payload?
Do all the packets from one message take the same route?
How are packets put back into the right order?
What is a protocol?
What does HTTP stand for?
What does HTTPS do that HTTP doesn't?
Tap any card to flip it, or use Study as deck to go through them one at a time. In the full lesson these run as a spaced-repetition deck — you rate each card Hard, Good or Easy and the tricky ones keep coming back until they stick.
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Keep me postedMore KS3 Computer Science topics
- Abstraction in computational thinking
- Adding binary numbers
- Binary to denary conversion
- Boolean logic: AND, OR, NOT
- Bubble sort
- Building truth tables
- Client-server vs peer-to-peer
- Collecting and recording data
- Comparing sorting algorithms
- Compressing data
- Creating a 3D animation
- Decomposition: splitting problems up
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