-
Exported Authenticators (ExpAuth)
Imagine you’re playing a game with your friends, and you’ve already agreed on the rules (like setting up a secret handshake). But after the game starts, one of your friends says, “Wait! I want to show my membership card to prove I’m in the club.” You don’t need to stop the game and start over — they can just show the card during the game. That’s kind of how Exported Authenticators work in computer networks. They let someone prove who they are after the secure connection is already set up.
-
Correlation between HTTP and TLS
Imagine the Internet is like sending letters between two friends. HTTP is the language or format the letter is written in, like using English or another language. TLS is the envelope and lock you use to protect the letter so no one else can read it. Different versions of HTTP or TLS are like using newer types of letters or stronger locks to keep things safe.
-
Datagrams
Imagine sending a message in a bottle across the ocean. Each bottle has a short message, your friend’s address, and a number to tell them which order to read the messages in case they get more than one. That’s like a datagram on the Internet.
-
Anycast and Unicast routing systems
Imagine you have a letter to send. If you send it to one specific friend, that’s like unicast. But if you want to send it to whichever friend is closest to you at the moment, that’s like anycast.
-
Synthetic testing
Imagine you have a new toy robot, and you want to make sure it works perfectly. Instead of waiting for your friends to come over and play with it, you test it yourself. You press all the buttons and make it walk around to see if everything works fine. This is like what synthetic testing does for websites.
-
Real User Monitoring (RUM)
Let’s imagine you want to know how fast a toy car goes on different tracks in your house. You ask your friends to play with the car on each track and tell you how fast it went. This helps you understand which track is the fastest. That’s kind of what RUM does for websites.
-
A month in the new job: a rollercoaster
It’s now a month in my new job. It has been a rollercoaster, not just of emotions, but also in my sleeping patterns, 😅.
-
Server Name Indication (SNI)
Imagine you have a big box with many smaller boxes inside, each for different friends. When someone wants to open one of the smaller boxes, they need to tell you which friend’s box they want. That’s what SNI does for websites on a server.
-
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP)
Imagine you have a magical TV remote that lets you control your friend’s TV from your house. You can change channels, adjust the volume, and even see what’s on the screen. That’s kind of what RDP does, but for computers!
-
Reverse Proxy
Imagine you have a clubhouse where lots of people come to play games and hang out. Instead of letting everyone just walk in and out, you have a friendly doorman who checks who’s coming in and directs them to the right room.
-
Media over QUIC (MoQ)
Let’s imagine you want to watch a video or play a game online. Sometimes, it can be really slow, or the video might stop and start a lot. That’s because the internet has to send a lot of information back and forth, and sometimes things get a bit jammed up. What is MoQ?
-
HTTP/2 (H2)
Imagine you’re at a restaurant, and you’re ordering food. In the old way (HTTP/1.1), you would have to wait for each dish to arrive before you can order the next one. This takes a lot of time! But with the new way (HTTP/2), you can order all your dishes at once, and the chef can start making all of them at the same time. This means you get your food faster, and everyone is happier!
-
Time to First Byte (TTFB)
TTFB stands for Time to First Byte. It is a metric used to measure the responsiveness of a web server or another network resource. TTFB represents the amount of time it takes from when a client makes an HTTP request to when the first byte of the response is received by the client.
-
Round-Trip Time (RTT)
RTT stands for Round-Trip Time. It is a measure of the time it takes for a signal to travel from a source to a destination and back again. RTT is a critical metric in networking as it affects the overall latency experienced by users when accessing network resources.
-
L4 Connection
An L4 connection refers to a connection established at the Layer 4 (Transport Layer) of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model. The Transport Layer is responsible for end-to-end communication and data transfer between devices over a network. The two main protocols used at this layer are TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol).
-
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
ICMP stands for Internet Control Message Protocol. It is a network layer protocol used for error handling and diagnostic purposes in IP networks. ICMP is crucial for the smooth operation of the internet, as it helps manage and control the flow of information between network devices.
-
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP)
DSCP stands for Differentiated Services Code Point. It is a field in the IP header that is used for packet classification and traffic management in networks. DSCP is part of the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) model, which is used to provide Quality of Service (QoS) in IP networks.
-
Policy-Based Routing (PBR)
Policy-Based Routing (PBR) is a technique used in computer networks to make routing decisions based on policies set by network administrators, rather than solely relying on the destination IP address, which is the traditional method. PBR allows for more granular control over the routing of packets, based on criteria such as source address, destination address, protocol type, port numbers, or even application types.
-
HTTP/3 (H3)
HTTP/3, often abbreviated as H3, is the third major version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is used for transferring data on the web. It represents a significant evolution from its predecessors, HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2, by incorporating new technologies aimed at improving performance, reliability, and security.
-
Extensible Priorities
Extensible priorities in HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 refer to mechanisms that allow clients to specify the importance of different resources being requested from a server, which helps in optimizing the loading of web pages by prioritizing critical resources.
-
Colos and Data Centers
“Colo” is short for colocation. In the context of data centers, colocation refers to the practice of housing privately-owned servers and networking equipment in a third-party data center. Instead of maintaining their own data center, companies can rent space in a colocation facility, which provides the necessary infrastructure, power, cooling, and physical security.
-
Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
BGP stands for Border Gateway Protocol. It is a standardized exterior gateway protocol designed to exchange routing and reachability information between autonomous systems (ASes) on the Internet.
-
Encrypted Client Hello (ECH)
Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) is a security feature in the TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol aimed at improving privacy by encrypting the Client Hello message in the TLS handshake. The Client Hello message contains various information, including the hostname (Server Name Indication or SNI) that the client wants to connect to. By encrypting this information, ECH helps prevent eavesdroppers from knowing which website the user is trying to visit, enhancing privacy.
-
ASNs
ASN stands for Autonomous System Number. To understand ASNs, let’s break it down with an easy analogy.
-
Domain rotation
Imagine you have a bunch of friends, and each time you want to send them a letter, you use a different return address so they can’t easily track where you are. This is kind of like what domain rotation does on the Internet.
-
The meaning of friendship
In the last days, a lot of thinking has been going in my mind about what is the meaning of friendships, the expectations and the social conventions.