Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) refers to the language which is used by abstract syntax OSI protocols. ASN.1 is defined in ISO documents 8824.2 and 8825.2 and may be used to encode SNMP packets.

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is a policy which limits the use of a companies network for certain purposes such as restricting non-commercial use.

Access Control List (ACL) provide selective services for network security systems, it provides a capacity to control access and denial of service for a particular environment.

Acknowledgment (ACK) is a message sent to confirm that a block of data has been received. It confirms that the data has arrived without error, the opposite of this would be a negative acknowledgement.

An Internet address may be present as one of 4 types, they are email address; IP, internet or Internet address; hardware or MAC address; and URL.

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is an organisation which has been approved by the U.S Standards to determine character sets used in programming languages.

Bandwidth in expressed in Kilobits and comprises of the range of frequencies per second which over a data transmission channel. Bandwidth determines the rate at which information may be transmitted over a channel.

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a protocol for an internet standard which defines the way in which the transmission of packets, and routing information is passed accross networks.

Broadband is a form of transmission capable of allowing and supporting a large range of frequencies. On a braodband channel, the capacity may be divided into smaller multiple channels.

CRC is short for cyclic redundancy check

CWIS is short for Campus Wide Information system

Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) is a certification which indicated the level of networking knowledge a person may possess in networking for homes and small businesses.

Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a specialised team formed to combat online security threats involving internet hosts. CERT conduct online security research to determine possible areas of vulnerability and are able to respond to online security threats fast.

Connection-Oriented refers to a method of data communication through 3 phases which are connection establishment, data transfer and connection release. An example of a connection orientated protocol is a TCP, which includes circuit switching, connectionless and packet switching.

Data Encryption Key (DEK) is for text message encryption as well as the computation of signature verifications.

Data Encryption Standard (DES) is a standard encryption scheme.

Data Link Layer is the physical connection layer of the OSI responsible for data transfer, it can be described as a series of bridged connections.

Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) is a programming interface standard architecture with server funtionalities.

Domain Name System (DNS) is responsible for IP host lookup based on hostnames, it is general purpose data query service. Some examples of it are .COM (commercial), .EDU (educational), .NET (network operations), .GOV (U.S. government), and .MIL (U.S. military).

Electronic Mail (email) is a system where messages from different users can be sent to each other via a communications medium/network.

Extendable Markup Language (XML) is a Standardised General Markup Language used for applications where markup is required using Document Type Definitions (DTDs).

Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) is a protocol responsible for connecting autonomous systems by distributing information on routing to the routers.

FARNET are an organisation who are non-profit motivated and whose missions are to advance research and education computer networks.

Formerly Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) but they have now been renamed to Learning and Skills Council (LSC).

Federal Information Processing Standard

Federal Information Exchange

Federal Information Exchange (FIX) is a point of connection between the internet and the American government Internet.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a protocol which allows the access and transfer of files over a network, using a direct connection to a web server.

File transfer is the process of copying file(s) from one computer location to another, over a particular network.

Fragmentation occurs when data packets are broken into smaller pieces in a IP process physical network.

GOSIP Government OSI Profile

Graphical User Interface (GUI) usually consisting of graphical windows with menu's and a pointer.

General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a form a packet based wireless data communications with capacity to provide transfer at speeds of up to 171 kilobits per second. Virtual Private Network facilities are available to provide a degree of security especially when dealing with the mobile access to important valuable data.

High level Data Link Control (HDLC)

High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC)

Hypertext Markup Language ( HTML), is the language used to create hypertext documents such as thos seen as web pages, they enable links to be produced between documents.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a protocol used to provide transfer on the WWW for HTML file transfer.

Hacker is a person who has knowledge and understanding of a particular computer system, compuet or computer network. A Hacker is a unauthorised user, able to access or change information without permission.

Header is the portion of a data packet source which contains information regarding the source and destination addresses, as well as fields for error checking. A header precceeds the main data body in an electronic message and may also contain date, time and message originator.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP)

Internet Information Service (IIS)

ISDN is a Integrated Services Digital Network.

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a telephone service which allows voice and digital network services to exist together on a single medium.

Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) is responsible for the distribution of routing information on a autonomous system between routers.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large, open community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers whose purpose is to coordinate the operation, management and evolution of the Internet, and to resolve short-range and mid-range protocol and architectural issues. It is a major source of proposals for protocol standards which are submitted to the IAB for final approval. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meets three times a year and extensive minutes are included in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Proceedings. See also: Internet, Internet Architecture Board.

Internet Protocol (IP, IPv4) stands for Internet Protocol (version 4), defined in RFC 791, is the network layer for the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. It is a connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol.

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPng, IPv6) is a new version of the Internet Protocol which is designed to be an evolutionary step from its predecessor, version 4. There are many RFCs defining various portions of the protocol, its auxiliary protocols, and the transition plan from IPv4. The core RFCs are 1883, 1884, 1885 and 1886; also updated at RFC2460. The name IPng (IP next generation) is a nod to STNG (Star Trek Next Generation).

Internet Protocol security (IPsec) represents a packet layer security standard consisting of Authentication Header (AH) and Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) elements, defined in RFC 2402 and RFC 2406 respectively. Internet Protocol security (IPsec) are useful for Virtual Private Networks.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a world-wide "party line" protocol that allows one to converse with others in real time. IRC is structured as a network of servers, each of which accepts connections from client programs, one per user. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of Instant Messenging.

Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit, professional membership organization which facilitates and supports the technical evolution of the Internet, stimulates interest in and educates the scientific and academic communities, industry and the public about the technology, uses and applications of the Internet, and promotes the development of new applications for the system. The Internet Society (ISOC) provides a forum for discussion and collaboration in the operation and use of the global Internet infrastructure. The Internet Society (ISOC) publishes a quarterly newsletter, the Internet Society News, and holds an annual conference, INET. The development of Internet technical standards takes place under the auspices of the Internet Society (ISOC) with substantial support from the Corporation for National Research Initiatives under a cooperative agreement with the US Federal Government.

Internet address is a IP address which uniquely identifies computer on the internet.

The JANET Yorkshire and Northumbria Regional User Group represents the views of users of JANET within the ancient regions of Yorkshire and Northumbria, plus any modern additions. See also: JANET National User Group.

JANET-CERT is a JANET Computer Emergency Response Team. See also: Computer Emergency Response Team.

JISC Committee for Learning and Teaching, to facilitate coordination and effectiveness of Information Learning Technologies (ILT) in learning and teaching in UK colleges and universities.

JISC Technology Applications Programme is a iA programme of over 100 projects to develop and demonstrate applications of Information and Communication Technology, produce technology reviews and establish four clearing houses to promote use of ICT to support staff and students in HIgher Education.

Kentish MAN is a Metropolitan Area Network for Kent.

Kerberos is the security system of MIT's Project Athena. It is based on symmetric key cryptography.

Kermit is a popular file transfer protocol developed by Columbia University. Because Kermit runs in most operating environments, it provides an easy method of file transfer. Kermit is NOT the same as FTP.

Kernel is The level of an operating system or networking system that contains the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from the user. In a Unix system, the kernel is a program that contains the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler, and system calls. This program is always running while the system is operating.

Knowbot is a "Knowledge Robot" is a program which seeks out information based on specified criteria. "Knowbot," as trademarked by CNRI, refers specifically to the search engine for Knowbot Information Services.

LAN represents Local Area Network

Layer is a Communication networks for computers may be organized as a set of more or less independent protocols, each in a different layer (also called level). The lowest layer governs direct host-to-host communication between the hardware at different hosts; the highest consists of user applications. Each layer builds on the layer beneath it. For each layer, programs at different hosts use protocols appropriate to the layer to communicate with each other. TCP/IP has five layers of protocols; OSI has seven. The advantages of different layers of protocols is that the methods of passing information from one layer to another are specified clearly as part of the protocol suite, and changes within a protocol layer are prevented from affecting the other layers. This greatly simplifies the task of designing and maintaining communication programs

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol is a protocol provides access for management and browser applications that provide read/write interactive access to the X.500 Directory.

Link is A pointer which may be used to retreive the file or data to which the pointer points.

Local Area Network (LAN) is a data network intended to serve an area of only a few square kilometers or less. Because the network is known to cover only a small area, optimizations can be made in the network signal protocols that permit data rates up to 100Mb/s.

Lurking is a No active participation on the part of a subscriber to an mailing list or USENET newsgroup. A person who is lurking is just listening to the discussion. Lurking is encouraged for beginners who need to get up to speed on the history of the group.

MAC address is the hardware address of a device connected to a shared media.

MIME represents Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

Mail bridge is a mail gateway that forwards electronic mail between two or more networks while ensuring that the messages it forwards meet certain administrative criteria. A mail bridge is simply a specialized form of mail gateway that enforces an administrative policy with regard to what mail it forwards.

Mail gateway is a machine that connects two or more electronic mail systems (including dissimilar mail systems) and transfers messages between them. Sometimes the mapping and translation can be quite complex, and it generally requires a store-and-forward scheme whereby the message is received from one system completely before it is transmitted to the next system, after suitable translations.

Mail server is a software program that distributes files or information in response to requests sent via email. Internet examples include Almanac and netlib. Mail servers have also been used in Bitnet to provide FTP-like services.

Mailing list is a list of email addresses, used by a mail exploder, to forward messages to groups of people. Generally, a mailing list is used to discuss certain set of topics, and different mailing lists discuss different topics. A mailing list may be moderated. This means that messages sent to the list are actually sent to a moderator who determines whether or not to send the messages on to everyone else. Requests to subscribe to, or leave, a mailing list should ALWAYS be sent to the list's "-request" address (e.g., ietf-request@cnri.reston.va.us for the IETF mailing list) or majordomo server.

Management Information Base (MIB) is the set of parameters an SNMP management station can query or set in the SNMP agent of a network device (e.g., router). Standard, minimal MIBs have been defined, and vendors often have Private enterprise MIBs. In theory, any SNMP manager can talk to any SNMP agent with a properly defined MIB.

Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) is the largest frame length which may be sent on a physical medium

Multicast is a packet with a special destination address which multiple nodes on the network may be willing to receive.

Multiplex the division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. For example, one network may have simultaneous FTP, telnet, rlogin, and SMTP connections, all going at the same time.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is An extension to Internet email which provides the ability to transfer non-textual data, such as graphics, audio and fax. It is defined in RFC 1341.

NTU represents Network Termination Unit .

Name Server is a software which matches mnemonic names to raw addresses. This might be a Campus Name Server for local PCs (using a JNT protocol called Name Lookup Protocol or NLP), or a Domain Name Server for local hosts on an Internet site - such as the Bradford campus network.

Name Server record is a DNS resource record type indicating which host can provide the Domain Name Service facilities for a particular domain.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is the United States governmental body that provides assistance in developing standards. Formerly the National Bureau of Standards.

Network is a computer network is a data communications system which interconnects computer systems at various different sites. A network may be composed of any combination of LANs, MANs or WANs.

Network File System (NFS) is a protocol developed by Sun Microsystems, and defined in RFC 1094, which allows a computer system to access files over a network as if they were on its local disks. This protocol has been incorporated in products by more than two hundred companies, and is now a de facto Internet standard. [Source: NNSC]

Network Information Center (NIC) provides information, assistance and services to network users.

Network Layer is the OSI layer that is responsible for routing, switching, and subnetwork access across the entire OSI environment. [Source: RFC1208]

Network Operations Center (NOC) is a location from which the operation of a network or internet is monitored. Additionally, this center usually serves as a clearinghouse for connectivity problems and efforts to resolve those problems.

Network address is the network portion of an IP address. For a class A network, the network address is the first byte of the IP address. For a class B network, the network address is the first two bytes of the IP address. For a class C network, the network address is the first three bytes of the IP address. In each case, the remainder is the host address. In the Internet, assigned network addresses are globally unique.

Nodal Switching System (NSS) is the main routing nodes in the NSFnet backbone.

ODBC represents Open DataBase Connectivity. An application programming interface to allow programs to use databases, using Structured Query Language as its database access language.

OSI Network Address is the address, consisting of up to 20 octets, used to locate an OSI Transport entity. The address is formatted into an Initial Domain Part which is standardized for each of several addressing domains, and a Domain Specific Part which is the responsibility of the addressing authority for that domain. [Source: RFC1208]

OSI Reference Model is a seven-layer structure designed to describe computer network architectures and the way that data passes through them. This model was developed by the ISO in 1978 to clearly define the interfaces in multivendor networks, and to provide users of those networks with conceptual guidelines in the construction of such networks.

An octet is 8 bits. This term is used in networking, rather than byte, because some systems have bytes that are not 8 bits long.

Online Computer Library Catalog (OCLC) is a nonprofit membership organization offering computer- based services to libraries, educational organizations, and their users. The OCLC library information network connects more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. Libraries use the OCLC System for cataloging, interlibrary loan, collection development, bibliographic verification, and reference searching. [Source: OCLC]

Open Shortest-Path First (OSPF) is a link state, as opposed to distance vector, routing protocol. It is an Internet standard IGP defined in RFC 1583 and RFC 1793. The multicast version, MOSPF, is defined in RFC 1584.

Packet Assembler Disassembler (PAD); the hardware or software interface between a user's terminal and a packet-switching network. A PAD assembles the user's input characters into packets for network transmission, and disassembles packets of output characters into their component characters for output on the terminal. The PAD facility may run on a host computer or on a dedicated processor (such as the JNT-PAD).

Protocol Control Information. The protocol information added by an OSI entity to the service data unit passed down from the layer above, all together forming a Protocol Data Unit (PDU). [Source: RFC1208] PD

PHP: Hypertext Processor. An HTML-embedded scripting language used to create dynamic web pages by running scripts on the web server and embedding the results in web pages. Available from http://www.php.net/.

PTR is name record for a host of given address, for reverse lookup, in Domain Name Service.

Packet is the unit of data sent across a network. "Packet" a generic term used to describe unit of data at all levels of the protocol stack, but it is most correctly used to describe application data units.

Packet InterNet Groper (PING) is a program used to test reachability of destinations by sending them an ICMP echo request and waiting for a reply. The term is used as a verb: "Ping host X to see if it is up!"

Packet Switch Node (PSN) is a dedicated computer whose purpose is to accept, route and forward packets in a packet switched network.

Physical Layer is the OSI layer that provides the means to activate and use physical connections for bit transmission. In plain terms, the Physical Layer provides the procedures for transferring a single bit across a Physical Media. [Source: RFC1208]

Any means in the physical world for transferring signals between OSI systems. Considered to be outside the OSI Model, and therefore sometimes referred to as "Layer 0." The physical connector to the media can be considered as defining the bottom interface of the Physical Layer, i.e., the bottom of the OSI Reference Model. [Source: RFC1208]

A port is a transport layer demultiplexing value. Each application has a unique port number associated with it.

Portal is a web site integrating many facilities within one user interface. Only of value if the infrastructure for personal information databases, authentication and authorisation methods, group communication, business processes and timely content have already been engineered for harmonious web access. Driver software to address a multiplicity of browser devices, from PCs and personal digital assistants to mobile phones and interactive TV, should make content available in many environments.

Post Office Protocol (POP) is a protocol designed to allow single user hosts to read mail from a server. Version 3, the most recent and most widely used, is defined in RFC 1725.

Postmaster is the person responsible for taking care of electronic mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site.

Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is a program, developed by Phil Zimmerman, which cryptographically protects files and electronic mail from being read by others. It may also be used to digitally sign a document or message, thus authenticating the creator.

Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) is Internet email which provides confidentiality, authentication and message integrity using various encryption methods.

Prospero is a distributed filesystem which provides the user with the ability to create multiple views of a single collection of files distributed across the Internet. Prospero provides a file naming system, and file access is provided by existing access methods (e.g., anonymous FTP and NFS). The Prospero protocol is also used for communication between clients and servers in the archie system.

Protocol is a formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet). [Source: MALAMUD]

Protocol converter is a device/program which translates between different protocols which serve similar functions (e.g., TCP and TP4). [Source: RFC1392]

Protocol stack is a layered set of protocols which work together to provide a set of network functions.

Quality of Service (QoS), a measure of the priority of packets in a shared network, principally in terms of latency in transmission. Of interest in real-time applications e.g. video.

Queue is a backup of packets awaiting processing. [Source: RFC1392]

net.citizen is an inhabitant of Cyberspace. One usually tries to be a good net.citizen, lest one be flamed.

Packet switching is a communications paradigm in which packets (messages) are individually routed between hosts, with no previously established communication path.