| ▲ | wpollock 8 hours ago | |||||||
The source and destination addresses don't change. If a bomb takes out a router in-between (the military scenario DARPA had in mind), it is NOT IP (L3) or TCP (L4) that handles it. Rather it is a dynamic routing protocol that informs all affected routers of the changed route. Since the early days of the Internet, that's been the job of routing protocols. For smaller internets, protocols such as RIP (limited to 16 hops) broadcast routing information from each still-working router to other routers. Each router built a picture of the internet (simplifying a bit here, RIP and similar protocols used "distance vector" routing, but other more advanced routing protocols did have each a picture of the internet). So when a packet arrived at its router, that router can forward the pack towards the destination. Such protocols are "interior" routing protocols, used within an ISP's network. The Internet is too big for such automatic routing and uses an "exterior" routing protocol called BGP. This protocol routes packets from one ISP to the next, using route and connectivity information input by humans. (Again I'm simplifying a bit.) Wifi uses entirely different protocols to route packets between cells. Fun fact: wifi is not an acronym for anything, the inventors simply liked how it sounded. | ||||||||
| ▲ | jstimpfle 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |||||||
> Fun fact: wifi is not an acronym for anything, the inventors simply liked how it sounded. Most certainly it's a reference to "Sci-Fi" or "Hi-Fi". | ||||||||
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| ▲ | 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |||||||
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