The following is a condensed glossary of the Internet world.

ACM
Association for Computing Machinery--Group established in 1947 to promote professional development and research on computers.
address
The are two separate uses of this term in Internet networking: "electronic mail address" and "Internet address". An electronic mail address is the string of characters that you must give an electronic mail program to direct a message to a particular person. See "Internet address" for its definition.
AI
Artificial Intelligence--Branch of computer science which deals with the simulation of human intelligence by computer systems.
AIX
Advanced Interactive Executive--IBM's version of Unix.
ANSI
American National Standards Institute--Group that certifies organizations which develop U.S. standards for the information processing industry. ANSI accredited groups participate in defining network protocol standards.
ARP
Address Resolution Protocol--An Internet protocol which runs on Ethernet and all IEEE 802.X LANs which maps internet addresses to MAC addresses.
ARPA
Advanced Research Projects Agency--The former name of what is now called DARPA.
ARPANET
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network--A pioneering long haul network funded by ARPA. It served as the basis for early networking research as well as a central backbone during the development of the Internet. The ARPANET consisted of individual packet switching computers interconnected by leased lines.
AS
Autonomous System--Collection of gateways (routers) under a single administrative authority using a common Interior Gateway Protocol for routing packets.
ASCII
American (National) Standard Code for Information Interchange.
B
Byte--One character of information, usually eight bits in length.
b
Bit, Binary digit--The smallest amount of information which may be stored in a computer.
BBN
Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.--Cambridge, MA company responsible for development, operation and monitoring of ARPANET, and later, the Internet core gateway system, the CSNET Coordination and Information Center (CIC), and NSFNET Network Service Center (NNSC).
BITNET
Because It's Time Network--BITNET has about 2,500 host computers, primarily at universities, in many countries. It is managed by EDUCOM, which provides administrative support and information services. There are three main constituents of the network: BITNET in the United States and Mexico, NETNORTH in Canada, and EARN in Europe. There are also AsiaNet, in Japan, and connections in South America. See CREN.
bps
Bits per second--A measure of data transmission speed.
BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution--Term used when describing different versions of the Berkeley UNIX software, as in "4.3BSD UNIX".
catenet
A network in which hosts are connected to networks with varying characteristics, and the networks are interconnected by gateways (routers). The Internet is an example of a catenet.
CCITT
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee core gateway. Historically, one of a set of gateways (routers) operated by the Internet Network Operations Center at BBN. The core gateway system forms a central part of Internet routing in that all groups had to advertise paths to their networks from a core gateway.
CREN
Corporation for Research and Educational Networking--BITNET and CSNET merged to form CREN.
CSNET
Computer + Science Network--A large data communications network for institutions doing research in computer science. It uses several different protocols including some of its own. CSNET sites include universities, research laboratories, and commercial companies. See CREN.
DARPA
U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--The government agency that funded the ARPANET and later started the Internet.
Datagram
A self-contained, independent entity of data carrying sufficient information to be routed from the source to the destination data terminal equipment without reliance on earlier exchanges between this source and destination data terminal equipment and the transporting network.
DCA
Defense Communications Agency--Former name of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). See DISA.
DDN
Defense Data Network--Comprises the MILNET and several other DOD networks.
DDN NIC
Network Solutions, Inc. network information center--primary repository for RFCs and Internet Drafts, as well as providing other services.
DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation.
DECnet
Digital Equipment Corporation network--Networking protocol for DEC computers and network devices.
default route
A routing table entry which is used to direct any data addressed to any network numbers not explicitly listed in the routing table.
DISA
Defense Information Systems Agency--Formerly called DCA, this is the government agency responsible for installing the Defense Data Network (DDN) portion of the Internet, including the MILNET lines and nodes. Currently, DISA administers the DDN, and supports the user assistance services of the DDN NIC.
DNS
Domain Name System--a mechanism used in the Internet for translating names of host computers into addresses. The DNS also allows host computers not directly on the Internet to have registered names in the same style, but returns the electronic mail gateway which accesses the non-Internet network instead of an IP address.
DOD
U.S. Department of Defense.
DOE
U.S. Department of Energy.
dot address
Dot address (dotted address notation) refers to the common notation for Internet addresses of the form A.B.C.D; where each letter represents, in decimal, one byte of the four byte IP address.
Dynamic Adaptive Routing
Automatic rerouting of traffic based on a sensing and analysis of current actual network conditions. NOTE: this does not include cases of routing decisions taken on predefined information.
EARN
European Academic Research Network.
EBCDIC
Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code.
EGP
Exterior Gateway Protocol--A protocol which distributes routing information to the gateways (routers) which connect autonomous systems.
Ethernet
A network standard for the hardware and data link levels. There are two types of Ethernet: Digital/Intel/Xerox (DIX) and IEEE 802.3.
FDDI
Fiber Distributed Data Interface is a high-speed (100Mb) token ring LAN.
FIPS
Federal Information Processing Standard.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol--The Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.
gateway
See router.
GB
Gigabyte--A unit of data storage size which represents 10^9 (one billion) characters of information.
Gb
Gigabit--10^9 bits of information (usually used to express a data transfer rate; as in, 1 gigabit/second = 1Gbps).
GNU
Gnu's Not UNIX--A UNIX-compatible operating system developed by the Free Software Foundation.
header
The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields.
host number
The part of an internet address that designates which node on the (sub)network is being addressed.
HP
Hewlett-Packard.
I/O
Input/Output.
IAB
Internet Activities Board--The IAB is the coordinating committee for Internet design, engineering and management.
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation.
ICMP
Internet Control Message Protocol--ICMP is an extension to the Internet Protocol. It allows for the generation of error messages, test packets and informational messages related to IP.
IEEE
Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
IETF
Internet Engineering Task Force. The 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- and mid-range protocol and architectural issues. It is a major source of proposed protocol standards which are submitted to the Internet Activities Board for final approval. The IETF meets three times a year and extensive minutes of the plenary proceedings are issued.
internetwork
Any connection of two or more local or wide-area networks.
Internet
The global collection of interconnected local, mid-level and wide-area networks which use IP as the network layer protocol.
internet address
An assigned number which identifies a host in an internet. It has two or three parts: network number, optional subnet number, and host number.
IP
Internet Protocol--The network layer protocol for the Internet. It is a packet switching, datagram protocol defined in RFC 791.
IRTF
Internet Research Task Force--The IRTF is a community of network researchers, generally with an Internet focus. The work of the IRTF is governed by its Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG).
ISO
International Organization for Standardization.
KB
Kilobyte--A unit of data storage size which represents 10^3 (one thousand) characters of information.
Kb
Kilobit--10^3 bits of information (usually used to express a data transfer rate; as in, 1 kilobit/second = 1Kbps = 1Kb).
LAN
Local Area Network--A network that takes advantage of the proximity of computers to offer relatively efficient, higher speed communications than long-haul or wide-area networks.
LISP
List Processing Language--A high-level computer language invented by Professor John McCarthy in 1961 to support research into computer based logic, logical reasoning, and artificial intelligence. It was the first symbolic (as opposed to numeric) computer processing language.
MAC
Medium Access Control--For broadcast networks, it is the method which devices use to determine which device has line access at any given time.
Mac
Apple Macintosh computer.
MAN
Metropolitan Area Network.
MB
Megabyte--A unit of data storage size which represents 10^6 (one million) characters of information.
Mb
Megabit--10^6 bits of information (usually used to express a data transfer rate; as in, 1 megabit/second = 1Mbps).
MILNET
Military Network--A network used for unclassified military production applications. It is part of the DDN and the Internet.
MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MTTF
Mean Time to Failure--The average time between hardware breakdown or loss of service. This may be an empirical measurement or a calculation based on the MTTF of component parts.
MTTR
Mean Time to Recovery (or Repair)--The average time it takes to restore service after a breakdown or loss. This is usually an empirical measurement.
MVS
Multiple Virtual Storage--An IBM operating system based on OS/1.
NASA
National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NBS
National Bureau of Standards--Now called NIST.
network number
The part of an internet address which designates the network to which the addressed node belongs.
NFS
Network File System--A network service that lets a program running on one computer to use data stored on a different computer on the same internet as if it were on its own disk.
NIC
Network Information Center--An organization which provides network users with information about services provided by the network.
NOC
Network Operations Center--An organization that is responsible for maintaining a network.
NIST
National Institute of Standards and Technology--Formerly NBS.
NSF
National Science Foundation.
NSFNET
National Science Foundation Network--The NSFNET is a highspeed "network of networks" which is hierarchical in nature. At the highest level is a backbone network currently comprising 16 nodes connected to a 45Mbps facility which spans the continental United States. Attached to that are mid-level networks and attached to the mid-levels are campus and local networks. NSFNET also has connections out of the U.S. to Canada, Mexico, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. The NSFNET is part of the Internet.
NSFNET
Mid-level Level Network--A network connected to the highest level of the NSFNET that covers a region of the United States. It is to mid-level networks that local sites connect. The mid-level networks were once called "regionals".
OSI
Open Systems Interconnection. A set of protocols designed to be an international standard the Internet as a packet switching network and describes IP datagrams as packets.
PC
Personal Computer.
PCNFS
Personal Computer Network File System.
PPP
Point-to-Point Protocol--The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) provides a method for transmitting datagrams over serial point-to-point links.
protocol
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).
RFC
The Internet's Request for Comments documents series--The RFCs are working notes of the Internet research and development community. A document in this series may be on essentially any topic related to computer communication, and may be anything from a meeting report to the specification of a standard.
RIP
Routing Information Protocol--One protocol which may be used on internets simply to pass routing information between gateways. It is used on many LANs and on some of the NSFNET intermediate level networks.
RJE
Remote Job Entry--The general protocol for submitting batch jobs and retrieving the results.
router
A special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. In particular, an Internet router forwards IP datagrams among the networks it connects. Gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network.
Remote Procedure Call
An easy and popular paradigm for implementing the client-server model of distributed computing.
server
A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a Network Files System (NFS) Server which shares its disk space with one or more workstations that may not have local disk drives of their own.
SLIP
Serial Line Internet Protocol--SLIP is currently a defacto standard, commonly used for point-to-point serial connections running TCP/IP. It is not an Internet standard but is defined in RFC 1055.
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol--The Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another. SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail.
SNA
System Network Architecture--IBM's data communications protocol.
SNMP
Simple Network Management Protocol--The Simple Network Management Protocol (RFC 1157) is the Internet's standard for remote monitoring and management of hosts, routers and other nodes and devices on a network.
subnet
A portion of a network, which may be a physically independent network, which shares a network address with other portions of the network and is distinguished by a subnet number. A subnet is to a network what a network is to an internet.
subnet number
A part of the internet address which designates a subnet. It is ignored for the purposes internet routing, but is used for intranet routing.
T1
A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-1 formatted digital signal at 1.544 megabits per second.
T3
A term for a digital carrier facility used to transmit a DS-3 formatted digital signal at 44.746 megabits per second.
TCP
Transmission Control Protocol--A transport layer protocol for the Internet. It is a connection oriented, stream protocol defined by RFC 793.
TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol--This is a common shorthand which refers to the suite of application and transport protocols which run over IP. These include FTP, TELNET, SMTP, and UDP (a transport layer protocol).
Telenet
A public packet-switching network operated by US Sprint. Also known as "SprintNet".
TELNET
The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service. TELNET allows a user at one site to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal was connected directly to the remote computer.
Token Ring
A type of LAN--Examples are IEEE 802.5, ProNET-10/80 and FDDI. The term "token ring" is often used to denote 802.5
Tymnet
A public character-switching/packet-switching network operated by British Telecom.
UDP
User Datagram Protocol--A transport layer protocol for the Internet. It is a datagram protocol which adds a level of reliability and multiplexing to IP datagrams. It is defined in RFC 768.
ULTRIX
UNIX-based operating system for Digital Equipment Corporation computers.
UNIX
An operating system developed by Bell Laboratories that supports