Data Networking 101

Encryption transforms readable data into ciphertext with a key so that only someone holding the right key can turn it back, protecting the data while it is stored or in transit.

A hash function turns input of any size into a fixed-size fingerprint in a way that cannot be reversed, so that the fingerprint can verify data or store a password without holding the original.

A public key infrastructure is the system of certificates, certificate authorities and revocation mechanisms that lets a party verify which identity a public key belongs to before trusting it.

The OSI model is a seven-layer reference framework that separates networking into physical transmission, link, network, transport, session, presentation and application concerns, used to reason about where a problem sits rather than to describe any real protocol stack.

IP addressing is the scheme that gives every interface on a network a numeric address, with IPv4's four-byte addresses now supplemented by IPv6's much larger space, and with private ranges reserved for use inside networks that reach the internet through translation.

Subnetting divides an address block into smaller networks by choosing how many leading bits identify the network, written as a prefix length or a subnet mask, so that each subnet has its own range of host addresses and its own routing entry.

A CDN is a worldwide network of servers that answers requests for your site from a location near the person asking, instead of sending every request back to the single machine your site runs on.

DNS is the distributed lookup system that turns a hostname such as getting-digital.net into the IP address a browser can connect to, by walking a chain of nameservers whose answers are then cached for a lifetime the domain's owner publishes.

SSL/TLS is the protocol that encrypts the connection between a browser and a server and, by way of a certificate signed by a certificate authority, proves the server is entitled to answer for the domain in the address bar.