How Work Gets Done on the Internet

The way computers use the Internet to work together is of particular importance when developing an understanding the application of privacy law to the Internet. The key point has already been stated, computers on the Internet work together to process and transfer data. An example will help illustrate how computers on the Internet work together. Imagine a person in Chicago, Illinois, who wants to order a book for a friend’s birthday using the Internet. In this case, the person chooses to buy the book from Amazon.com. So the person will direct her web browser to show her the Amazon.com online bookstore by typing ‘http://www.amazon.com’ into his web browser. Nearly instantaneously, our shopper will see Amazon.com’s online bookstore appear in her web browser window. Simple. However, behind the scenes a lot happened. The shopper’s computer sent a packet of information out onto the Internet consisting of a destination address (amazon.com), a source address (the IP address of the shopper’s computer), and the message (send me the online bookstore web page). Ultimately, Amazon.com’s computer(s) in Seattle, Washington received the message and sent a return message to our shopper containing data so the web browser on her home computer could display the online bookstore. As she worked her way through the online store, each time she clicked her mouse a similar transaction was made between her computer and Amazon.com’s computers.

Someone unfamiliar with how the Internet works would be comfortable analogizing these transactions as each computer sending postal mail, or telegraph messages between each other. After all, each communication has a destination address and a source address, and some information contained in the body of message, like regular mail. However, between the shopper’s home computer and Amazon.com’s computers, are dozens of other computers on the Internet that receive and process the information packets. Communication between computers on the Internet is not point-to-point. There are many intermediary computers that hand off the message to each other in a loosely coupled chain. The message gets between the sender and destination by way of an ad-hoc “bucket-brigade” of computers that pass the message along.

Now, here is where the regular mail analogy breaks down, each computer in the delivery “bucket-brigade” can read the content of the message, as well as the addressing information. In the past very few computer in the chain would trouble themselves with contents of message packets. However, in this age of malicious computer worms and viruses, the intermediary computers are more likely than not to peek at the contents of messages to determine if their payload is safe.

Electronic mail (e-mail) works similarly. The raw data is transferred through the Internet via a bucket-brigade of intermediary computers. However, because E-mail is a specialized service, there are additional special purpose computers dedicated to processing e-mail. These computers can be thought of as local post offices – collecting e-mail messages until the recipient can retrieve the message. Several “e-mail servers” can work together storing and forwarding e-mail until the message gets to its ultimate recipient. Each intermediary e-mail server can choose to scan the contents of the email for viruses and other harmful payloads.

The way the Internet transfers data, including e-mail, has important implications with respect privacy. Because “all” information commonly sent through the Internet is touched, scanned, handled, and read by third-party computers unknown to the average user.