Glossary
HTTP – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol – a standard protocol
used to transmit hypertext files over the World Wide Web. This protocol
is the most used one on the Internet.
FTP – File Transfer Protocol – a standard method of sending
files from one computer to another on TCP/IP networks such as the
Internet. FTP is also the name of the command used to initiate transfer
of files. Anonymous FTP is a common practice which permits users to access some parts
of an FTP site without an account and password for the site. Access usually is gained by using the username
"anonymous" or "ftp". By convention, the user should enter their e-mail
address as the password.
HTTPS – Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer
or HTTP over SSL (HTTPS) – a web protocol developed by Netscape and
built into its browser that encrypts and decrypts user page requests as
well as the pages that are returned by the web server. HTTPS is used by Netscape's Secure
Socket Layer (SSL) as a sub-layer under its regular HTTP application layering. SSL uses a 40-bit key size for the
RC4 stream encryption algorithm, which is considered an adequate degree
of encryption for commercial exchange.
SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving e-mail.
SMTP is the standard for electronic mail transport across the
Internet. When you send an e-mail message, SMTP packages your message
in a kind of envelope and relays it to its destination. Multiple
servers are often involved in the transport of the message, and as it
passes through them, each one time-stamps and tags it. Thus, when the
message arrives, the recipient can get an idea of where it has been and
when it was sent. SMTP also handles error messages, sending
notifications to senders when there is difficulty delivering their mail.
SSH – the program Secure Shell – a secure replacement for
telnet and the Berkeley r-utilities (rlogin, rsh, rcp, and rdist). It
provides an encrypted channel for logging into another computer over a
network, executing commands on a remote computer, and moving files from
one computer to another. SSH provides strong host-to-host and user
authentication as well as secure encrypted communications over an
insecure Internet.
POP3 – Post Office Protocol mail – e-mail software on your
personal computer that sends and receives mail via a shared computer's
electronic post office. Personal computers seldom have the network
resources required to serve as an independent post office. That is why
most people use shared systems as e-mail servers.
POP mail software on your personal computer (the POP client) logs
into the shared computer (the POP server) and transfers received mail
from your account to your personal computer. When you send a message
from your personal computer, the POP client transfers it to a dedicated
mail system for transmission on the Internet.
Most POP mail clients support features such as document attachment,
automatic document encoding and decoding, user look-up, internal
address books, font selection, signature files, and multiple mail
management options.
IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol formerly known as the
Interactive Mail Access Protocol – a protocol for e-mail clients to
retrieve e-mail messages from, and work with the mailboxes on, a mail
server. IMAP is the protocol that IMAP clients use to communicate with
the servers. SMTP is the protocol used to transport mail to an IMAP
server.
IMAP4, the latest version, is similar to POP3 but offers additional
and more complex features. For example, the IMAP4 protocol leaves your
email messages on the server rather than downloading them to your
computer. If you wish to remove your messages from the server, you must
use your mail client to generate local folders, copy messages to your
local hard drive, and then delete and expunge the messages from the
server.
SSL - Secure Sockets Layer – a commonly-used protocol for
managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet. SSL
has recently been succeeded by Transport Layer Security (TLS), which is
based on SSL. SSL uses a program layer located between the Internet's
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Transport Control Protocol (TCP)
layers. The "sockets" part of the term refers to the sockets method of
passing data back and forth between a client and a server program in a
network or between program layers in the same computer.
TCP/IP – Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol –
the basic communication protocol of the Internet. It can also be used
as a communications protocol in a private network.
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