World Wide Webfx Internet Glossary of Computer Terms

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Glossary of Computer Terms
from World Wide Webfx
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Acceptable Use Policy (AUP): Many networks-both the larger transit and regional networks, as well as company networks and public BBSs-have policies that restrict the uses to which the network or computing facility may be put. A well-known example was NSFNET's AUP which did not allow commercial usage. Enforcement of AUP's varies with the network and systems administrator. See also National Science Foundation.
address: The unique identifier for a specific location on a network. There are three types of addresses in common use within the Internet: e-mail addresses; IP or Internet address; and hardware or MAC addresses.
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET): A network funded by ARPA. It served as the basis for early networking research in the 1960s, as well as the central backbone during the development of the Internet. The ARPANET's architecture consisted of individual packet-switching computers interconnected by leased lines.
alias: A name, usually short and easy to remember; that stands for another name, usually long and difficult to remember. In networking, aliases are frequently used to associate a service with a logical name, rather than with a particular computer or machine address. Aliases are also used to reroute mail and service requests from one computer to another; this allows the system or network management to change the computer providing the services when needed without affecting users, or to keep the underlying architecture hidden. Aliases are also used to indicate the service available from the host: for example, www.weather.org, gopher.msu.edu, or ftp.netcom.com.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII): A standard character-to-number encoding widely used in the computer industry. Plain text, Postscript files, and BinHex files are among the types of data that are transferred in ASCII format. Spreadsheets, compiled programs, and graphics are transferred across the net in binary format. In addition, the computer community has extended the ASCII character set so it includes control and other characters. This change allowed for e-mail, "8-bit clean" data transmission, essential for the development of workstation TCP/IP applications. This lets users turn their home computers into Internet hosts.
anonymous FTP: An FTP site which does not require you to have a logon ID. Not all FTP servers make their file archives available to all Internet users. If they do, you can access the site by logging in using the ID "anonymous." It allows a user to retrieve (and sometimes deposit) documents, files, programs, and other archived data from archives in the Internet without having to establish a user ID and password on the computer that contains the archive. Many, but not all, computers used as FTP archive sites allow anonymous access. By using the special user ID "anonymous" and the password "guest" you can have limited access to publicly accessible files on the remote system. Many systems now request the user's e-mail address as a password to ensure better tracking. See also File Transfer Protocol.
application: Any of a class of "programs" or "software", which causes a computer to perform some useful function (like type text or add numbers or communcate over telephone lines).
ARA: Apple Remote Access, a program to allow full access to the UVA network including IP and AppleTalk services (Novell file Servers) over a phone line from a Macintosh computer
AppleTalk: an Apple network protocol that provides a way to share printers, file servers, and groupware services
Archie: A system that automatically gathers, indexes, and serves archived information on the Internet.The initial implementation of Archie provided an indexed directory of filenames from anonymous FTP archives on the Internet. Later versions provide other collections of information. See also archive site, Gopher Wide Area Information Servers.
ASCII: See American Standard Code for Information Interchange.
ASCII file: a file that contains only ASCII characters usually equivalent to plain text or DOS text. For comparison, see binary file
at sign (@): The at sign (@) is the separator for most e-mail addresses; it separates the user ID from the domain name of the mail computer. See also UUCP
AUP: See Acceptable Use Policy.
authentication: The verification of the identity of a person or process. The most common authentication process most users experience is the login challenge, which requests a valid login ID and a password. PIN numbers, "carding," and the famous military checkpoint challenge "Friend or foe?"-are all examples of authentication in everyday life. See also authorization.
authorization: The granting of privilege based on identity. Authorization is a partner to authentication in computer networking, where your access to services is based on your identity, and an authentication procedure guarantees that you are who you say you are. See also authentication, Kerberos, password.
auto-responder: A program that genrates an automated respone to an email message.