Internet glossary

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SAN - Storage Area Network. A high speed network of shared storage devices.

SDSL (Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line) - A version of DSL where the upload speeds and download speeds are the same.

Search Engine - A (usually web-based) system for searching the information available on the Web. Some search engines work by automatically searching the contents of other systems and creating a database of the results. Other search engines contains only material manually approved for inclusion in a database, and some combine the two approaches.

Security Certificate - A chunk of information (often stored as a text file) that is used by the SSL protocol to establish a secure connection. Internet glossary.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - The practice of designing web pages so that they rank as high as possible in search results from search engines. There is "good" SEO and "bad" SEO. Good SEO involves making the web page clearly describe its subject, making sure it contains truly useful information, including accurate information in Meta tags, and arranging for other web sites to make links to the page. Bad SEO involves attempting to deceive people into believing the page is more relevant than it truly is by doing things like adding inaccurate Meta tags to the page. Internet glossary.

Server - A computer in a network that provides access to other computers in the network to programs, web pages, data, or other files and services, such as printer access or communications access. A server may also authenticate requests for files and services before providing them.

Servlet - A small computer program designed to be add capabilities to a larger piece of server software. Common examples are "Java servlets", which are small programs written in the Java language and which are added to a web server. Typically a web server that uses Java servlets will have many of them, each one designed to handle a very specific situation, for example one servlet will handle adding items to a "shopping cart", while a different servlet will handle deleting items from the "shopping cart." Internet glossary.

SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) - Developed in 1986 SGML provides a rich set of rules for defining new data formats. A well-known example of using SGML is XML, which is a subset of SGML: The definition of XML is all of SGML minus a couple of dozen items. SGML is an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard: ISO 8879:1986.

Shareware - Software that is offered for free download in hopes that the user will decide to keep it and pay a fee for it after trying it out.

Site - A host on the Internet which allows remote access by such protocols as http, ftp, telnet, or gopher. A site may consist of a single page or many pages under a common site name.

SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) - A standard that was popular in the early 1990's for using a regular telephone line (a serial line) and a modem to connect a computer as a realInternet site. SLIP has largely been replaced by PPP. Internet glossary.

SMDS (Switched Multimegabit Data Service) - A standard for very high-speed data transfer.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) - The main protocol used to send electronic mail from server to server on the Internet. SMTP is defined in RFC 821 and modified by many later RFC's.

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) - A set of standards for communication with devices connected to a TCP/IP network. Examples of these devices include routers, hubs, and switches. Internet glossary.

SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) - A protocol for client-server communication that sends and receives information "on top of" HTTP. The data sent and received is in a particular XML format specifically designed for use with SOAP. SOAP is similar to the XMLRPC protocol except that SOAP provides for more sophisticated handling of complex data being sent between a client and a server. SOAP actually grew from the work that created XMLRPC. Microsoft's ".NET" system is largely based on SOAP.

Social engineering - A cracker term for tricking users of a system to reveal passwords so that the cracker can gain entry to the system. A common technique is to contact users in chat or e-mail on a system, pretend that they are employees of the system performing security checks, and insist that the users give their password to prove who they are or their account will be closed. Such requests are never legitimate! Social engineering schemes can be quite ingenious and convincing and more subtle than the simple technique above. Never reveal a password or even give hints what it may be.

Spam or Spamming - An inappropriate attempt to use a mailing list, or USENET or other networked communications facility as if it was a broadcast medium (which it is not) by sending the same message to a large number of people who didn`t ask for it. The term probably comes from a famous Monty Python skit which featured the word spam repeated over and over. The term may also have come from someone`s low opinion of the food product with the same name, which is generally perceived as a generic content-free waste of resources. (Spam® is a registered trademark of Hormel Corporation, for its processed meat product.) Internet glossary.

Spider - A software robot that serves a search engine by exploring the net, collecting web page addresses and page contents, and following links from them to other addresses to collect still more web information. Also known as a worm or crawler.

Spyware - A somewhat vague term generally referring to software that is secretly installed on a users computer and that monitors use of the computer in some way without the users' knowledge or consent. Most spyware tries to get the user to view advertising and/or particular web pages. Some spyware also sends information about the user to another machine over the Internet. Spyware is usually installed without a users' knowledge as part of the installation of other software, especially software such as music sharing software obtained via download. Internet glossary.

SQL (Structured Query Language) - A specialized language for sending queries to databases. Most industrial-strength and many smaller database applications can be addressed using SQL. Each specific application will have its own slightly different version of SQL implementing features unique to that application, but all SQL capable databases support a common subset of SQL.

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) - A protocol designed by Netscape Communications to enable encrypted, authenticated communications across the Internet.

Surf - To explore the nets without any more specific a purpose than to see what is out there.

Sysop (System Operator) - Anyone responsible for the physical operations of a computer system or network resource. For example, a System Administrator decides how often backups and maintenance should be performed and the System Operator performs those tasks.