“Humans are social animals” like Aristotle said and as such they need to communicate with each other. At the beginning there was only oral (verbal) and written communication, then thanks to the evolution of electronics and telecommunication systems humans were able to communicate with each other remotely by broadcasting messages via electrical or wireless signals. We’ve seen the introduction of the radio, the television, landline and mobile telephony, then the internet and the world underwent a significant change. For instance without such technologies you wouldn’t be able to read this article written by an Italian guy who is currently living in the UK and is making his website accessible by anyone across the world.

Computer Networking

WHAT IS A COMPUTER NETWORK?

A computer network is a group of devices (not necessarily “computers” but literally any electronic device [IoT]) connected to each other, able to communicate, to send and receive information.  Usually devices use electromechanical systems to generate, broadcast and receive a signal that is analog (a continuos stream of information) and then is converted to digital (using an I/O interface with a signal transducer and a discrete mathematical algorithm for its digital representation) in order to be processed electronically.

function of computer networks

Networks and connections like mathematical relations can be 1:1, 1:many or many:many, they can be synchronous, asynchronous or realtime, they need a network hardware and a transmission protocol that allow the transmission of data, not as a whole but in the form of chunks of data or fragments called network packets. We’ll see these things and much more in the following articles.

A good networking foundation is essential for the wannabe ethical hacker / pentester, so we’ve got you covered. As I always emphasize in the course, you’ll need to put in extra effort and do your personal research in order to become a good IT Security Professional but the path to become an expert is long and arduous, so you won’t disdain a minimal guidance.

Author: Fabio Baroni   Date: 2016-02-10 18:27:18