Glossary

ACL

Access Control List - those users with permission to get at a resource.

API

Application Programming Interface. A standard programming library for using some facility.

ARPANET

Advanced Research Project Agency's Network. The original core of the Internet.

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode a new high speed low level networking technology. Also, Automatic Teller Machine] Cashpoint.

BinHexed

Compressed and encoded for ASCII transmission over a network.

CDs

Compact Disks....

CGI

Common gateway Interface: An API between WWW servers and backend programs.

DCA

The Defense Communications Agency

DIY

Do It Yourself.

DNS

The Domain Name Service

Daemon

A network server program.

Datagram

the Unit of transfer at the lowest level of the Internet.

Ethernet

the most widespread Local Area Network technology.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol - the traditional Internet tool for moving files around interactively.

GIF

Graphical Interchange Format.

GUI

Graphical User Interface (e..g Mosaic, as opposed to a command line interface, e.g. DOS).

HTML

Hyper Text Markup Language.

HTTP

HyperText Transfer Protocol

Hotlist

A list of frequently visited resources.

HyperText

Human readable information annotated with structural links between non-sequential sections.

IAB

Internet Advisory Board - elected technical board under the Internet Society that advises on standards.

IANA

Internet Assigned Number Authority - gives out protocol and system identifiers.

IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force - does the work to develop Internet Systems and Standards.

IP

The Internet Protocol - currently version 4.

IP6

the Next Generation Internet Protocol.

ISBNs

International Standard Book Numbers.

ISDN

Integrated Services Digital Network] digital telephone lines.

ITU

the International Telecommuncaitions Union - sets standards for Public Network Operators (``telcos'').

JPEG

Joint Picture Expert Group - ISO Standards group that developed the still picture compression standard encoding commonly known as JPEG.

KA9Q

Ham Radio Call Sign of Phil Karn, and software for PCs to Internetwork.

Kerberos

An Authentication system from MIT.

LAN

Local Area Network - a network in a single building or office - eg. an Ethernet.

MIME

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.

MPEG

Motion Picture Expert Group - compressed digital TV standards group in ISO. MPEG I and MPEG II commonly used now to store and transfer video.

Mbone

the Multicast Backbone - the part of the Internet capable of interactive video and audio between multiple simultaneous participants.

NSA

National Security Agency - US Governemnt Agency that deals with Cryptosystems.

NSFNet- the National Science Foundation's Network

originally, the US Academic and Rsearch portion of the Internet.

PGP

Pretty Good Privacy - a public domain package for extremely good authentication and encryption of messages.

Perl

a programming language for rapid development of tools.

SGML

Standardized Generalized Markup Language - ISO standard upon which HTML rests.

TCL

Tool Command Language - another programmign system like perl.