Hi, BTN.
My name's Elias, and my question is - how does the internet work?
(MISSION IMPOSSIBLE THEME PLAYS)
It's our go to for top-secret answers.
It's how we snoop out our friends.
Oh, wow!
Amelia's popcorn looks amazing!
And it's where you can tap into some really funny videos.
(LAUGHS) Jack!
Every time!
And we can access this stuff pretty much anywhere at any time.
It's the internet,
but it's come a long way from where it started.
The internet can be traced back to the 1960s in the US.
It started as a network of just four computers
that were running on different operating systems
which could share information.
Local universities and government departments linked into that network,
and other countries joined it too.
Turning it into a massive, international network
and giving it the name we use today.
But the guy who helped the internet really take off was Tim Burners-Lee.
In 1989, he created a system used for sharing information on the internet
which he named the World Wide Web.
Now around 3.2 billion people around the world use the internet.
Anyone can post information on there,
that's why it's really important not to believe everything you read.
But how does it all actually work?
Well, I went on a little mission to ask an expert.
(MACHINES WHIRR)
Hi, Jesse. How you going? Hello, Tash! Sorry about the noise.
There's a lot of computers busy at work here today.
It is a bit loud. Yeah.
Well, thanks for having me.
So, can you tell me, Jesse, how on earth does the internet work?
Yeah, well, look,
there are millions of computers and servers just like this
that connect us all around the world, OK?
And they're connected by these very large cables
but, believe it or not,
most of these cables that connect these together
are actually under the sea.
These cables are about as thick as a can of soft drink.
They're buried in shallow areas of the ocean
or found in water up to 8.000 meters deep.
They carry fibre-optic cables that allow internet data
to travel from one place to another really quickly.
And they're a lot quicker and reliable than satellite
because data doesn't need to travel up
and then back down again.
The internet wouldn't be possible without these cables,
so people, and even sharks,
have tried to damage them in the past.
What if I wanted to send a picture to, say, a friend overseas -
how does that all work?
Yeah, good question.
So, look, think of every computer and every website.
It has what's called an IP address, which is like a street address, OK?
So, if you want to send a picture to a friend of yours overseas,
if we imagine that picture is like a puzzle
and it has hundreds of tiny puzzle pieces connected to it, OK,
what we do is when we send that picture,
these little pieces, they get sent one by one,
and they have pieces of information on them that tell us
where we want to send that picture to.
OK?
And once that picture reaches its destination,
it stitches itself back up and you get to see the picture
on the other end.
That's pretty amazing. Yeah.
Thanks for teaching me a bit more about the internet.
No worries.
So I think I've accomplished my mission.
That's a wrap.