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Glossary of Terms -
With special thanks to all of our contributors.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The method used to move data around on the Internet. In packet switching, all the
data coming out of a machine is broken up into chunks, each chunk has the address
of where it came from and where it is going. This enables chunks of data from many
different sources to co-
You might think of several caravans of trucks all using the same road system to carry materials.
A password is a secret series of letters and numbers that you choose to protect an online login to a personal account. It will be needed when you access online banking, collect your email and visit websites you are registered with.
A private branch exchange (PBX) is a telephone exchange that serves a particular business or office, as opposed to one that a common carrier or telephone company operates for many businesses or for the general public. PBXs are also referred to as:
- PABX -
private automatic branch exchange - EPABX -
electronic private automatic branch exchange
A PC is an abbreviation for Personal Computer.
PDF is abbreviation and file extension for Portable Document Files. These are created by proprietary software owned by the Adobe company. though there are many freeware and open source tools that will allow you to open and read this type of document. PDF files are often sent as attachments to email.
A penetration test is a method of evaluating the security of a computer system or network by simulating an attack from a malicious source, known as a Black Hat Hacker, or Cracker. The process involves an active analysis of the system for any potential vulnerabilities that may result from poor or improper system configuration, known and/or unknown hardware or software flaws, or operational weaknesses in process or technical countermeasures. This analysis is carried out from the position of a potential attacker, and can involve active exploitation of security vulnerabilities. Any security issues that are found will be presented to the system owner together with an assessment of their impact and often with a proposal for mitigation or a technical solution. The intent of a penetration test is to determine feasibility of an attack and the amount of business impact of a successful exploit, if discovered. It is a component of a full security audit.
Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language)
Perl is a programming language that is widely used for both very simple, small tasks and for very large complex applications.
During the 1990’s it became the de-
Because it is so easy to perform simple tasks in Perl it is often used by people
with little or no formal programming training, and because Perl provides many sophisticated
features it is often used by professionals for creating complex data-
Peripherals are all the add-
Phishing is a form of fraud on the World Wide Web where a user is tricked into revealing
personal financial data. Often propagated through spam email, phishing may include
the use of fake websites or requests in email for password and login details. Anti-
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor)
PHP is a programming language used almost exclusively for creating software that is part of a web site. The PHP language is designed to be intermingled with the HTML that is used to create web pages. Unlike HTML, the PHP code is read and processed by the web server software (HTML is read and processed by the web browser software.)
To check if a server is running you can issue a ICMP echo request.
A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software.
Common examples are plug-
PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
PNG is a graphics format specifically designed for use on the World Wide Web. PNG
enable compression of images without any loss of quality, including high-
POP is an abbreviation for Post Office Protocol. It is an agreed method for storing and forwarding email messages and you use it when you connect to a computer on the Internet to collect your email.
A point-
3 meanings. First and most generally, a place where information goes into or out of a computer, or both. E.g. the serial port on a personal computer is where a modem would be connected.
On the Internet port often refers to a number that is part of a URL, appearing after
a colon (:) right after the domain name. Every service on an Internet server listens
on a particular port number on that server. Most services have standard port numbers,
e.g. Web servers normally listen on port 80. Services can also listen on non-
gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/
This shows a gopher server running on a non-
Finally, port also refers to translating a piece of software to bring it from one type of computer system to another, e.g. to translate a Windows program so that is will run on a Macintosh.
Usually used as a marketing term to described a Web site that is or is intended to be the first place people see when using the Web. Typically a "Portal site" has a catalog of web sites, a search engine, or both. A Portal site may also offer email and other service to entice people to use that site as their main "point of entry" (hence "portal") to the Web.
The most common protocol used to connect home computers to the Internet over regular phone lines.
Most well known as a protocol that allows a computer to use a regular telephone line and a modem to make TCP/IP connections and thus be really and truly on the Internet.
On the Internet "protocol" usually refers to a set of rules that define an exact format for communication between systems. For example the HTTP protocol defines the format for communication between web browsers and web servers, the IMAP protocol defines the format for communication between IMAP email servers and clients, and the SSL protocol defines a format for encrypted communications over the Internet.
Virtually all Internet protocols are defined in RFC documents.
Private Circuits are typically circuits that are leased from a carrier, and provide
point-
Whilst these types of circuits can be expensive, as they are invariably costed on distance between the two ends (locations), they do provide a fixed bandwidth that can be fully utilised and managed by the customer for any type of application.
A proxy server is a server that sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfil the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server. Proxy Servers can offer significant benefits in speed and security.
PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network)
The regular old-
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