Syllabus 

Types and characteristics of communication protocols including;                12 ATAR

• TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
• HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol
• HTTPS HyperText Transfer Protocol over secure socket layer
• WAP Wireless Application Protocol

Background

• For a network to work correctly it needs to have rules to make the system work. 
• These rules are called protocols. for example when you type in a web address, it is the HTTP protocol that is working
• A protocol is a set of rules that allow a computing device to communicate with another computing device

TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol

• is the standard to connect to a web server
• is the standard that divides your expected webpage into smaller 'packets'
• gives an address for each packet
• gets sent
• is the standard for receiving a webpage
• it does error checking to make sure some of the packets aren't missing
• it reassembles the 'packets' into the correct sequence for the expected webpage
• now the browser is ready to display the webpage, BUT, we need HTTP for that

HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol

• is the standard to transfer hypertext
• HTTP is the request, response protocol
• a client requests, yes via typing http...    into the web address bar
• if the web server can proceed with the request, ie the web address is correct, it will send the page
• if the server cannot proceed with the request, ie the web address is wrong, it will send an error page 404 page not found

HTTPS - HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure (Secure Socket Layer-SSL)

• is the standard to transfer hypertext, but with a secure connection
• it is secure because data passes within a connection encrypted by SSL
• a web server will authenticate to see if the password, called a digital certificate public/private key matches,
• if this key setup matches, it remains secure and you can get into the webpage

WAP - Wireless Application Protocol

• is the standard to access data over a mobile wireless system
• it can access all operating systems, on all mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops
• Wireless Markup Language (WML) delivers the content to the smaller display screens
• WML is similar to HyperText Markup Language

 For You To Do

1. What is a protocol?
2. How is HTTP different from  HTTPS?
3. How does TCP/IP work?
4. How does HTTP work?

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