What is "IT"?

This text makes many references to “the Internet” and IT, an abbreviation for Information Technology, sometimes more accurately referred to as Information and Communication Technologies. These refer to t he entire system of systems of electronic data networks and devices that use digital ones and zeros to store, process and transmit information in packet-based networks. This includes the World Wide Web, which is the sum of all web pages, email communications, various chat devices from Instant Messages to Internet Relay Chat, Usenet and other BBS’s and a variety of other protocols, systems and applications. The common aspect of all these technologies is that they travel in packets, small self-contained chunks of data, over the network that does not show preference to one type of data over another. There are exceptions to this, of course, and proprietary networks, but most are designed to handle packets, rather than specific messages.

When I specifically want to refer to one particular technology, I will do so, but I will also be referring to the whole system with the reference IT or the Internet.

Allan Friedman
January, 2002