Technology Infrastructure for Electronic Commerce

Olga Gelbart

rosa@seas.gwu.eduTHE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

based on Prof. Lance Hoffman’s Lecture on Network Infrastructure for Electronic Commerce

Snapshots of the Electronic Commerce World

• Yesterday - EDI

• Today - getting our toes wet, what this course is about

• Tomorrow - Metadata, machine understandable information on the Web.– Catalog information

– Intellectual property information

– Endorsement Information

– Privacy information

– see www.w3c.org/pics and www.w3c.org/p3p

How Did We Get Here?

• Before the Internet– History of Commerce and Money– Elements of payment systems

• The Start of the Internet– Predecessor Networks– Timeline of Significant Events

• The Internet Today– What is the Internet?– How Does the Internet Work?– Differences from Original Net– Differences from Traditional World Out There

• The Internet in the Future

What is the Internet?• On October 24, 1995, the FNC unanimously passed a resolution defining

the term Internet. This definition was developed in consultation with members of the internet and intellectual property rights communities. RESOLUTION: The Federal Networking Council (FNC) agrees that the following language reflects our definition of the term "Internet". "Internet" refers to the global information system that -- (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.

• http://www.fnc.gov/Internet_res.html

The Internet - connections Computers in the backbone connected by a (T3) data connection (45 megabits /second)

ISP hosts and other powerful computers connect using (T1,Broadband) lines

Leased lines (some business)

Modem dial-up connections

Cable modems

ADSL -- Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

Internet features• Originally ARPAnet

– MIT, MITRE, SRI, BBN

– Distributed communications even with many failure points

– Dissimilar computers exchange info easily

– Route around nonfunctioning parts

– 4 sites: SRI, UCLA, UCSB, Univ of Utah

• Hafner and Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Simon & Schuster 1996

Kahn’s Internet PrinciplesR. Kahn, Communications Principles for Operating Systems. Internal BBN

memorandum, Jan. 1972.

• Each network must stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to connect it to the Internet

• If a transmission failed, try again

• Simple black boxes (later called “gateways” and “routers” would connect the networks

• No global control at operations level

The Internet - development1962 Licklider, J.C.R., Galactic Network memosLicklider - MIT to ARPAARPANET and successors: open architecture networking1970s: universities and other DoD contractors connect packets rather than circuits (note many of the names in the articles were graduate students then)1975: 100 sites and e-mail is changing how people collaborateLate 1970s: New Packet Switching Protocol:

Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)1980: MILNET takes over military traffic1980s: NSFNet links together NSF researcgers, Internet protocols incorporated into (BSD) Unix, a widespread operating systemLate 1980s: NSFNet absorbs original ARPANET (for a US university to get NSF funding for an Internet connection, that connection had to be made available to all qualified users on campus, regardless of discipline1995: Commercial backbones replace NSFNet backboneUsenetBITNETCommercial Networks: AOL, Compuserve, etc.

Federal Decisions that Shaped the Internet

• Agencies shared cost of common infrastructure, e.g., trans-oceanic circuits

• CSNET/NSF (Farber) and ARPA (Kahn) shared infrastructure without metering

• Acceptable Use Policy - no commercialization. Privately funded augmentation for commercial uses (PSI, UUNET, etc.), thought about as early as 1988 KSG conferences sponsored by NSF

• NSF defunded NSF backbone in 1995, redistributing funds to regional networks to buy from now-numerous, private, long-haul networks

• NSFNet $200M from 1986-1995

The Internet - Four AspectsLeiner, et al., “A Brief History of the Internet”,

http://info.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html

• Technological Evolution

– Packet Switching

– Scale, Performance, Functionality

• Operations and management of a global and complex infrastructure

• Social Aspect - Internauts

• Commercialization

Internet Development Timeline

From “A Brief History of the Internet” by B. Leiner, et al.,http://info.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html

Excerpts from Hobbes’ Internet Timeline

by Robert H. Zakonhttp://www.info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/HIT.html

• 1957 Sputnik; US forms ARPA• 1962 P Baran, Rand, “On Distributed Communications Networks”, packet switched networks• 1967 Larry Roberts first design paper on ARPAnet• 1969 ARPANet commissioned. First RFC. • 1970 ALOHANet (radio) connected to ARPANet in 1972• 1971 Ray Tomlinson E-mail, BBN• 1972 Telnet specification (RFC 318)• 1973 File transfer specification (RFC 454)• 1977 Mail specification (RFC 733)• 1979 USENet newsgroups. First MUD.• 1981 CSNet• 1982 DoD standardizes on TCP/IP • 1983 Name server developed at University of Wisconsin; users no longer need to remember exact path to other systems• 1983 Berkeley releases 4.2BSD including TCP/IP• 1984 DNS introduced. Now over 1,000 hosts• 1984 Moderated newsgroups on USENET• 1988 Internet worm affects 6,000 of the 60,000 Internet hosts• 1990 EFF founded by Mitch Kapor• 1991 WWW released by CERN (Tim Berners-Lee, developer)• 1991 PGP released by Phil Zimmerman• 1992 ISOC chartered• 1992 “Surfing the Internet” coined by Jean Armour Polly• 1993 US White House goes online• 1993 Internet Talk Radio• 1994 Can now order pizza from Pizza Hut online• 1994 First Virtual bank open for business• 1995 RealAudio• 1995 Netscape third largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value• 1995 Registration of domain names no longer free• 1996 Communications Decency Act passed, challenged in US• 1997 CDA overturned by Supreme Court

Growth of the InternetFrom Hobbes’ Internet Timeline at http://info.isoc.org. ...

How Internet Manages Change?

• RFC process

• W3C process

• Now a proliferation of stakeholders

• Debates over control of name space

• Profits to be made and lost

• Commercial vs. Other interests

Trends in Internet Applications

• Internet TV (Web TV + VIATV Videophone)

• Voice over IP (VoIP)

• Internet telephone

• Internet dashboard (Alpine GPS, Windows CE in cars)

• Wireless (WAP)

Internet: Big Picture

How Internet Works: Packets

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol

1. User clicks on link in browser.

2. Browser examines URL and gets IP address of destination (website).

3. Browser sends HTTP request to website.

4. Webserver is already listening at port.

5. Webserver looks at request and extracts filename.

6. Webserver sends entire file to browser.

7. Browser decodes (parses) HTML and displays.

8. Browser makes additional requests as needed (images etc).

TCP/IP

• IP: Internet Protocol (handles packets)

• TCP: Transmission Controls Protocol (handles connections)

Sending Form Data (parameters)

1. User fills in Form (text, buttons etc).

2. User clicks on submit.

3. Browser collects Form data.

4. Browser extracts URL buried in Form (not always visible to user).

5. Browser sends request and parameters to webserver.

6. Webserver is listening on port.

7. Webserver extracts Form data.

8. Webserver fires up locally-residing program (CGI) and hands over Form data (parameters).

9. CGI program computes output and gives it to webserver.

10. Webserver sends output back to Browser.

11. Browser displays output.