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Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve

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Camray. It's ready. Are you

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get in touch with technology? With tech

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Stuff from how stuff works dot com.

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Hello everyone, welcome to tech stuff.

0:19

My name is Chris Polette. I'm an editor at

0:21

how stuff works dot com, and as usual,

0:23

sitting across from me, I have senior writer Jonathan

0:26

Strickland. We're on a road to nowhere,

0:31

which just goes to show you that we're not a couple

0:33

of talking heads. That's right, Before

0:35

we get into this topic, we have actually

0:38

it's a two fur First, we have a little

0:40

listener mail. This

0:46

listener mail comes from Sam, and Sam says,

0:48

Hello, John and Chris. I really enjoy your show

0:50

and I appreciate all the wonderful information you provide

0:53

about various tech Keep up the good work, could

0:55

you, guys, perhaps to a podcast that covers how network

0:57

routers such as links Us and other's

0:59

work for and their role in office and home networks.

1:02

That'd be swell if you did. Thank you guys for making such

1:04

entertaining yet informative podcast. Cheers. PS.

1:06

Is there any chance that the old listener

1:09

mail audio clip might be played again?

1:11

You know, the one with the annoying alarm. I

1:13

like the new one, and I know it is stuck, but there are times where

1:15

I yearned to hear the old one. Sam.

1:19

This is for you. Everyone else, please

1:21

turn down the volume on your your

1:24

various playback devices. You

1:26

have been warned, and now that I have warned

1:28

you, here comes a little old

1:30

school sound effect for listener.

1:40

But on top of the listener mail that we just read from

1:42

Sam from Austin, Texas, we also had a little

1:44

Facebook feedback you be

1:47

This comes from Scott, who says, Hey, I was wondering if

1:49

you guys could do a podcast about routers, the

1:51

different uses for them and which is best for

1:54

gaming, streaming, video, etcetera. Thanks

1:56

so much. Your episode on I p V six

1:58

was great and the number of IP address as was

2:00

nuts. You're telling me, Scott, I'm still trying

2:02

to get my breath back. So we are going

2:05

to talk about routers. And before we get

2:07

too far into this, I want to say

2:09

we have some great articles on how stuff

2:11

works dot Com about routers, so if you want

2:14

to get more information, I recommend

2:16

checking out how routers work, also how network

2:18

address translation works. Both of those are going

2:20

to be important in this discussion. Um,

2:23

so let's talk about what a roller

2:25

is and what it does and why it's important,

2:28

yes, and talking about what

2:31

value it has to the Internet. Let's

2:33

just say there wouldn't be one without

2:36

routers because

2:38

you know, of course, the Internet

2:41

is a network of computers. It's

2:43

just networks. Yes, it's exactly.

2:46

It's a it's a basically, it's a vast system

2:49

of computers talking to one another via multiple

2:52

networks and protocols. So yes,

2:54

well yeah, they use the protocols to talk to us.

2:56

But yeah, I mean you have you might

2:58

have only one computer in your house and

3:01

it hooks up to you know, the networks

3:03

at the Internet service provider, and

3:05

then those go to other networks

3:08

and it just goes on and on and on. Or

3:10

you might even have multiple computers

3:12

in your house running on another network

3:15

which is attached to the other networks. That's

3:17

why they call it a cloud, because there's

3:19

no definite shape to the Internet.

3:21

It all. It all depends on what's on and what's

3:23

off at any given time, and

3:26

these routers make it possible, especially when you

3:28

do have one line coming into your

3:30

house and you have multiple computers. Yeah,

3:32

So what routers allow is the

3:34

transfer of information across different

3:37

layers of communication. Now,

3:39

what I mean by that is that the

3:41

Open Systems inter Connection or os

3:44

I model of communication divides

3:47

up communication into seven

3:49

layers. And uh, really

3:51

we're just going to be thinking about the first three layers

3:53

here. Actually now I'm thinking about seven layer bars.

3:56

Yeah, I'm thinking about seven layer dip so

3:58

um dip so.

4:01

The the the seven layers

4:03

are. This was a system that was proposed

4:05

by Charles Bachman of a Honeywell

4:07

Information Services. Honeywell, of

4:09

course, is one of those big names that's important

4:11

in uh in computer science. Yeah,

4:13

they they've done all kinds of technological

4:16

things. Yes, So the seven

4:18

layers are sort of as a

4:21

concepts so that you can break down

4:23

what sort of communication happens between various

4:26

components within a communication system.

4:28

And it's uh so that you can really figure out, all

4:30

right, well, how do we have these various

4:32

layers interact with one another, which ones

4:35

need to be, you know, segregated from

4:37

the rest and uh and just kind

4:39

of a way of defining it, at least from

4:41

an ideal perspective

4:43

as opposed to necessarily a physical one. But

4:46

layer one is what we call the bit layer

4:49

it's the physical layer of data communication.

4:51

So we're talking about physical elements such as

4:54

pens and uh the voltage,

4:56

it's act also electrical layout.

4:58

It's the voltage that you need it transfer

5:00

information. And really you're talking about

5:03

a single device communicating

5:06

through some sort of medium. So this

5:09

is where we were talking about one device.

5:11

We're not connecting it to anything else

5:13

at on a layer one layer of communication.

5:17

Layer two is where we start talking

5:19

about communication between devices,

5:22

and in this case we're talking about communication between

5:24

devices within a local area

5:26

network or land. All right,

5:28

so a land you do

5:30

not need a router. We actually

5:32

had another fellow right

5:35

in UM recently on

5:37

on our Facebook page, I posted a quiz

5:39

about routers, and he pointed

5:42

out that actually this is

5:44

Carl who said this is called me pedantic. But question

5:46

one, A home network does not require a router

5:49

to operate either. Carl is absolutely

5:51

correct. You do not need a router to allow

5:54

communication within a local area network.

5:56

You need a switch that can switch

5:58

the data back and forth, but you don't need a router.

6:01

Right, So this is layer to all that all that communication

6:04

within layer two within a local area network,

6:06

a single network can be uh

6:10

controlled through a switch. You don't have to worry

6:12

about a router at that point. Now, if

6:14

you want to communicate to a device,

6:17

it's on another network. This is where

6:19

the Internet comes in. The Internet

6:21

is that network of networks. So let's say I

6:23

want to visit a website and the

6:25

server that has that websites

6:28

information on it is not on my

6:30

local area network, but is on some other

6:32

network, possibly on the other

6:34

side of the world. That's when you need a

6:36

router, because what the router does is

6:38

it controls the the information

6:41

moving from your local area network to

6:44

the Internet so that it will

6:46

go to the proper place. And it also receives

6:48

information from the Internet and transfers

6:51

it to your local area network so that you can view

6:53

it or interact with it in whatever way.

6:56

So that's the basic purpose

6:59

of a router, uh And it's

7:01

you know, when you break it down that way,

7:03

it kind of it makes it easier to understand why

7:05

routers are important. Without a router, you

7:07

would not be able to have this

7:09

this data transfer between a

7:11

larger network or or a computer

7:14

on another network and your computer you would

7:16

just have You'd be able to have communication

7:18

through a local system, but not through a global

7:20

system. Unless you have a really

7:22

long cable. Yeah. That's especially

7:25

important for the Internet because

7:27

as as you will remember, or at

7:29

least as a long time listeners will remember,

7:32

Uh, traffic on the Internet goes in little

7:35

uh pieces or packets.

7:37

They're actually called packets, um,

7:39

and they're sent uh redundantly.

7:42

So you know, you might take a file, uh

7:45

say, an email and break it down into

7:48

a series of packets. Each of those

7:50

has some information that tells where

7:53

it's going, UM, where it's

7:55

coming from, and what piece

7:57

it is. It might be, you know, piece three of

7:59

packet three of forty, let's say,

8:02

um, so it tells uh the

8:04

network where to send it and how to reassemble it

8:06

when it gets there. On the other side, Well, the thing

8:08

is, uh, it might say, okay,

8:10

well, I'm going from uh computer

8:13

A to computer B, to computer C to computer

8:15

D. Well, all of a sudden,

8:17

there's a power failure at computer

8:19

C, so it goes from A to B. Oh

8:22

it's stuck. Well, in

8:24

the Internet, Uh, it's set up where

8:26

the packets can be sent and re routed

8:29

around computer C. So you might go to

8:31

computer F and then back to computer

8:33

D. Because they can be sent

8:35

at multiple directions. At the same time,

8:37

and then you know with the idea that one

8:40

set of packets will be reassembled into the

8:42

file on the other end. And the router

8:44

is crucial to making this happen. Yeah,

8:46

Routers have this thing called a routing

8:48

table, and routing table is essentially

8:52

a guide saying this

8:54

is where, this is the direction you need to send

8:56

packets in order for information to come

8:59

to go from to this machine and

9:01

get to that machine. So machine

9:03

A and machine beat will say, alright, So

9:05

a routing table will in general give

9:07

the fastest uh route.

9:10

Now, the fastest route is not necessarily

9:12

the shortest route, true,

9:14

And it's the same as if you live in a city.

9:17

All right, So let's say let's let's let's take the city

9:19

as a kind of a metaphor

9:21

here. We're gonna look at the city as an analog to

9:23

the internet. It's not it's

9:25

not entirely analogous, but

9:27

we're going to kind of make some jumps

9:29

here. So let's say you live in a city

9:32

and the city tends to have a lot of traffic

9:34

in it, and you may be at

9:37

your house and you want to go eat at a

9:39

popular restaurant that's across town. And

9:41

so you know three different

9:43

ways of getting to the place

9:46

across town. One of them takes the least

9:48

number of turns. It's it's the most direct

9:50

route, but it's also the most heavily traffic

9:52

route. So in other words, you could

9:55

go that way and you wouldn't have to

9:57

turn as frequently, but because of

9:59

the the number of cars on

10:01

that route, it will actually take you longer

10:03

to get there than if you took a slightly more circuitous

10:06

route that would have less traffic

10:08

on it. So in that case, you say, you know what, I know

10:10

that this is the direct path, but

10:12

I'm going to take this more out of the way path. This it's

10:15

it's a shortcut in time, but

10:17

not in distance. And the same thing

10:19

is true on the internet. You might be able to find

10:21

a route to push traffic

10:23

through that's going to be faster, even

10:26

though it's not as direct. By

10:28

the way, if you happen to live in Los Angeles,

10:30

I understand that this is a sport that

10:33

in Los Angeles, if you have a group

10:35

of people and you have all decided to go someplace,

10:38

the first hour of your travel

10:40

time will actually be taken up spending time

10:42

talking about the best way to get to where you're

10:44

going. Okay, yeah, very

10:47

little driving in LA so well that's it's.

10:50

What's required is that you and at least one

10:52

other person each in their own

10:54

vehicles, have to be going to a specific

10:57

place, leaving from the same location.

10:59

And at that point you have launched into

11:02

the game where then you say no,

11:04

no, no, you don't want to do that. That's going to take you on the

11:06

four oh five And haven't you heard of Carmageddon?

11:09

And um so, yeah, it's the

11:11

same sort of thing. Now. Granted, if if the city

11:14

were empty, then the direct route

11:16

would be the shortest, but the city is

11:18

never empty because the zombie apocalypse

11:20

hasn't happened yet, at least

11:22

at the time of the recording of this podcast. Yes

11:26

so, and by the way, if by

11:28

the zombie apocalypse has happened since

11:30

we record this podcast, I would like to have a

11:32

shout out to all of our new listeners with

11:34

BRAT. We're

11:37

great with the zombie demographic. Oh

11:41

I'm a little loopy today, Yeah you know, I

11:43

hadn't noticed. Yeah, so anyway, The routing

11:45

table is this list of essentially

11:47

rules that the router follows in order

11:50

to send packets across the network.

11:52

And you might say, well, that seems pretty

11:55

um stiff and and

11:57

and inflexible. What happens when

11:59

things change, Well, routing tables are

12:01

not static. They are dynamic.

12:03

They change all the time. And what's

12:05

happening is routers are actually

12:07

communicating with each other across

12:10

the Internet constantly updating

12:12

this information and changing it so that the

12:14

most uh, the most efficient

12:18

route is constantly being adjusted.

12:20

And they're doing this through various protocols.

12:23

Routing Information Protocol or r I p RIP

12:26

that would be the one

12:28

of the common protocols used. Another one is

12:31

the Open Shortest Path First or OSPF

12:34

protocol. These protocols

12:37

are what routers use in order to update

12:39

these routing tables so that data will

12:41

co go across the network, across

12:44

the Internet in the most efficient way

12:46

possible, the way that's got

12:48

the best guarantee that your information is going to get

12:50

to where it needs to be. And each

12:53

packet that Chris was talking about

12:55

earlier has data in it that allows

12:57

it to um

13:00

well, allows it to the system

13:02

to keep track of it. So let's say that you've sent

13:04

a file like let's say I'm sending a file to

13:06

Chris and Chris is on one network and I'm on

13:08

another network, and uh,

13:11

some of my packets don't get through. Well,

13:13

the system keeps track of that. The what

13:16

will happen is the information will come back to my

13:18

computer and it will say, hey, packets

13:21

three, seven, and twelve out

13:23

of the forty that you sent never made it to

13:25

Chris's machine. Then my machine will automatically

13:28

re send those packets so that

13:30

they will hopefully get to Chris's machine.

13:32

Now, granted, all this is happening at near the speed

13:35

of light, so you don't really notice

13:37

the delay unless something's really really

13:39

bad has happened. Um. And

13:42

so this is all happening in the blink of an

13:44

eye, but it's happening over and over

13:46

and over across the Internet, right,

13:51

um and and yes it's um just to

13:53

go back to protocols to the protocols are

13:55

basically, uh, languages

13:57

that the routers used to speak to one another. Um.

14:00

It's it enables people

14:03

multiple manufacturers to make devices

14:05

that will communicate with one another and

14:08

be interoperable, which is you know, we

14:10

talked about that actually on our podcast

14:13

about how the Internet works, and we

14:15

mentioned on some of the others. I think we probably did

14:17

on IPv six that, uh,

14:19

there are certain protocols that allow MC to

14:21

talk to a Linux box and the Linux box

14:23

to talk to a PC and etcetera. Right, they're

14:25

all they're all using the computer equivalent

14:28

of Esperanto. Yes, no,

14:32

anyway, Yeah, that's that's what that's what

14:34

our protocol is. And route routers do have those, uh,

14:36

protocols that are specific to routers, and that that

14:38

does help them balance the load somewhat on the Internet.

14:41

Yeah, we should should say, I guess that a router really

14:43

is a very specific computer. It's not

14:45

just this box that you buy and you know it's got lights

14:47

on it and when it's lit up, you know that the information

14:50

is going through it is actually a very specific

14:53

type of computer. Yeah, very specialized

14:55

device. And and a lot of the routers, like the home routers

14:57

that you purchase for your your home network,

15:00

whether it's wireless or wired, also

15:02

tend to act as a switch. And

15:04

what by by that, I mean that it allows

15:06

you to have your computers

15:08

talk to one another. So if you have

15:10

multiple computers at your house, you can

15:13

send files from one machine to another

15:15

machine without having to set up like some weird email

15:17

thing or whatever, you can actually send it directly

15:19

through your home network because your router

15:21

also can be a switch. It's not just a

15:24

router that sends information

15:26

from your network to the Internet and back. Um.

15:29

Also, when we were talking about information

15:31

going across the network and figuring out the

15:33

most efficient way, in the sense of

15:36

routers, what they do is they calculate

15:39

the cost of a

15:42

of any particular data transmission,

15:44

and cost does not mean

15:47

dollars. It means hops, alright,

15:50

So when a router sends information across

15:52

the network, information may go from one

15:54

router to another router to another router until

15:56

it finally gets to wherever it's going. All

15:58

right, Each time that information

16:00

goes from one route or to another, that's called

16:03

a hop, right now. Protocols,

16:05

certain protocols have a limited

16:07

number of hops that are built

16:10

into uh any sort

16:12

of data transference, and that information

16:14

is stored in the data packet. Okay,

16:16

So it's almost like I'm passing

16:18

a note in class, and the note

16:20

can only pass through three

16:23

other people before it gets to my destination.

16:25

It's one of them, the teacher. The teacher

16:28

accesses the the packet of information

16:31

it gets discarded, which is very much

16:33

like what happens on the internet. Actually, so,

16:35

so let's say that again. But now

16:38

we're talking about a classroom. So Chris is

16:40

sitting across the class from

16:42

from me. I'm on one side, he's on the

16:44

other side. I want to pass him a note

16:47

that says something like, uh, I don't

16:49

know the didn't the teacher wear that same outfit

16:51

yesterday? And so I'm trying to send the

16:53

the note across the class and it can only

16:56

pass through three other hands up

17:00

before it hits Chris. If it passes through more than

17:02

that, then whoever the fourth person

17:04

is is like, this is not worthwhile and just

17:06

tosses the note away. The

17:08

same thing is happening with hop counts if

17:11

I send a packet of information. If I'm

17:13

sending a file to Chris and it's going across

17:15

the Internet, there's a certain number of hops that

17:17

packet will go through before it

17:19

hits the maximum number of hop count. Now

17:21

that does not mean that the packet just automatically gets thrown

17:24

away. It means that the system says, you

17:26

know what, this packet has gone through this

17:28

kind of serpentine pathway

17:30

in order to get to where it's going. It's not getting

17:33

there efficiently. Chances are this packet

17:35

has already made it to the destination

17:37

through a fewer number

17:39

of hops. So I'm just going to toss the packet

17:41

aside because otherwise, because

17:44

the Internet is a redundant system,

17:46

and because it's meant to be robust,

17:48

and it's meant to get a packet of information

17:50

to the destination through whatever means

17:52

possible within the parameters of

17:55

the Internet. If you didn't have

17:57

these sort of uh discards

17:59

them is put into place, the Internet

18:02

would become overrun with packets. Yeah,

18:05

because you know, if I'm sending that file to Chris

18:07

and there's these duplicate packets going

18:09

across the network, what happens when

18:11

one packet gets to the destination and the

18:13

other packets are still out there trying to trying

18:16

to get to the destination. You're starting to clog

18:18

up the Internet with all of this data.

18:20

So these these fail safes

18:23

are in place in order to prevent

18:25

the Internet from just bogging down with

18:28

too much data. And they didn't

18:30

have to buy a like a digital router and

18:32

go in and yeah, we've got we've

18:34

got the routers, but not the routers router

18:37

routers. I had to call them once

18:40

it was did not go well, No, it's never

18:42

anyway. Um. So in order

18:44

to make all this work, in addition to your

18:47

router and your network, you also have

18:49

to have an address, a unique address for

18:52

each item on the network. And this we've talked

18:54

about in the I p V four

18:56

versus I p V six podcast. Ideally

19:00

you would have every single device

19:03

that connects to the Internet would have its own unique

19:07

address, so that whenever

19:09

I want to send something to another device

19:11

or receive information from another device,

19:14

it would always go to the same address.

19:16

And that way, it's just it's just efficient. It's a clean,

19:18

efficient system. But we don't

19:20

have enough addresses to do that,

19:23

right. But each item and

19:25

you may have actually seen this when you're going into your

19:28

computer or you know, other devices

19:30

like tablets and smartphones that use

19:32

Internet networks, or video game systems,

19:34

video game systems, uh, set top

19:36

boxes, TVs. There's a lot

19:38

of different devices that do it now, which is again

19:41

part of the problem. Yeah, that this is called

19:43

a MAC address. It's known as Media

19:45

Access control and it

19:47

doesn't look like well, actually, it kind

19:50

of resembles an IP address because

19:52

it has a series of letters and numbers

19:55

separated by by colon's

19:58

and that this is how you can identify I. Um,

20:00

you know, say you have been foolish

20:03

and have left your wireless

20:06

network open to the

20:08

public, and you

20:10

have let's say a computer and a tablet

20:13

and wait a minute, there are

20:16

three things on your network. Well,

20:18

then you can look at the MAC address on

20:21

your computer, and you can look at the MAC address and your

20:23

tablet and UH

20:25

by process of elimination, figure out what the

20:27

other device is and

20:30

maybe even get an idea. If you can access

20:32

the uh um

20:35

the routers information

20:37

page, you can you can see what what's

20:39

going on, how much traffic it's using, and hopefully

20:42

shut it down. You can even on on some

20:45

uh probably on most of them, I would guess.

20:47

I just don't want to be absolute um,

20:50

you know, restricted to certain Mac addresses,

20:52

so you can you can actually add you can

20:54

on mind on the device I

20:56

have at home. You can say,

20:58

you know, I'm adding this tablet,

21:00

I'm adding this game console, I'm adding

21:03

this uh smartphone, I actually

21:05

use WiFi calling on my smartphone,

21:07

you know, and things like that, and say, okay, I'm only

21:10

allowing MAC addresses

21:12

that I know to join this network. But

21:14

Basically, this is a way for um,

21:17

you know, local networks to identify

21:19

the devices and send the packets that go

21:21

to that device, so they know, um that

21:23

if you are reading how Stuff Works dot

21:26

Com and your spouse

21:28

is looking at a

21:31

news network and you know you

21:33

don't get the packets mixed up. It says, oh, well, these belong

21:35

to this address, these belong to that address, and

21:37

I'm going to be the traffic cop and send the

21:40

right packets to the right place, right.

21:42

Yeah. This this kind of ties into network

21:44

address translation, which I referred to at the beginning

21:46

of the podcast. We've also talked about

21:48

that in the I p V four versus I p V six.

21:51

Yes, it's one of the ways to address the problem

21:53

of having more devices in the world

21:56

than we have available IP

21:58

addresses for those devices to connect to

22:00

the Internet. Now, for information

22:03

to travel across the Internet, it means

22:05

that you have to have an Internet Protocol

22:07

address. This allows the information

22:11

to travel across it allows it

22:13

allows other computers to find you, and

22:15

allows your computer to send information to other

22:17

computers. Uh. Without the IP

22:19

addresses, you of course would have no way of knowing

22:22

how to get information from one machine

22:24

to another. It's kind of like in a

22:26

sense, it's kind of like a physical address or phone

22:28

number. If we didn't have phone numbers, if

22:30

it was all a party line, you would just have to pick

22:32

up the phone and hope that whomever you're trying

22:34

to contact is also on the phone at

22:37

that time, and everyone else will be able to hear

22:39

your conversation at the same time. And but in just

22:42

curious, have we ever talked about party

22:44

lines? I don't think, so that might

22:46

be fun. Then we can add that to the to do list.

22:48

So the network address

22:50

translation, this is a layer that, uh

22:53

that could be very useful in this sense.

22:55

You would have a router that would have a number

22:57

of static IP addresses, or

23:00

it possibly would have a number of addresses assigned

23:02

to it by the whatever your Internet

23:04

service provider is. Your

23:07

devices would not have static

23:09

IP addresses. They would have like some non

23:12

unique IP address and

23:15

dynamically assigned and and and

23:17

because they are non unique, that means

23:19

you can't just automatically tag

23:21

into the Internet and send stuff because if

23:24

it's a non unique address, I mean

23:26

some other devices out there on the Internet may

23:28

also have that same address, So anything

23:31

you request would be sent to all of them.

23:33

So what happens is your router acts as kind

23:35

of a postmaster. You have

23:37

this non unique address. You send

23:40

information to the you're trying to get,

23:42

uh, let's say again a website. I'm trying

23:44

to visit a website. Uh. That

23:46

request goes through to my router. My router

23:49

then replaces my non unique

23:51

address with a unique static

23:53

IP address and keeps track

23:56

of that relationship within the routing

23:58

table. When it's own pro re calls,

24:01

sends that request out to the internet. It

24:03

eventually gets to the server that I want.

24:05

The information comes back to the router. The routers

24:07

says, all right, this information is meant

24:10

for static IP address

24:12

whatever. Now it has to refer

24:14

to its table and see which of your devices

24:17

on your home network, your local area network

24:20

has temporarily been assigned that static

24:22

address. It then sends the information

24:24

to you. If if you are no longer part of that network,

24:27

or if it can identify it,

24:29

it gets dumped. It dumps that information

24:31

so it goes nowhere. Um.

24:34

Now, this is one of the things

24:36

that kind of it depending

24:39

on the type of engineer, it can really

24:41

irritate engineers because it's

24:43

a less efficient system and this is also

24:46

one of the issues with gaming routers

24:48

we talked about. You know, the request asked

24:50

about what kind of routers are best for gaming. Well,

24:53

because of the network address

24:55

translation, this can slow

24:58

down data trans mission

25:00

a little bit. I mean, there can also be some compatibility

25:03

issues, um, especially if

25:06

the router has to change these the

25:08

IP address for whatever the device is. Like,

25:10

if you've got a lot of devices that are connecting to this router,

25:13

there could be some complications and

25:15

complications when you're gaming. That's a bad

25:17

thing because it's going to affect how

25:19

fast that information is traveling to whichever device

25:22

you're using the game. It's complicated.

25:24

Yeah, well that can that can

25:26

mean that you will get lag in the game

25:28

you're playing. It means that you might get artifacts.

25:31

Uh, the game will not play as

25:33

well as you would want it to. So

25:36

any any device that's using

25:39

that you're that's one of the things

25:41

you gotta look at, like, well, how how

25:44

well rated is this router for that particular

25:47

function. Um. Also depending

25:49

on well, if you are a serious gamer,

25:52

you probably you probably want

25:54

a wired router. Uh. A

25:56

lot of the wireless routers also have wired connections

25:59

to them. Yeah, so

26:01

you probably want a wired connection, and the reason

26:04

for that is that it's more reliable than wireless.

26:07

You are less likely to have interference. Uh,

26:10

you're not going to find a dead spot. Like you

26:12

know, if you have your wireless network set

26:14

up in one room and you tend to game in

26:16

a different room and uh,

26:18

and there are certain materials

26:21

in your walls, it may end up

26:23

blocking some of the signal, which means that you may not have

26:25

a clear signal and that will affect your gaming.

26:28

So a wired connection tends to be best

26:31

if you want to go wireless. UH,

26:33

the IN protocol tends

26:35

to be the best. It's the fastest, and it has

26:38

a really good penetration as

26:40

far as various materials goes.

26:42

So if you have a wireless or other set up, it's

26:45

a it's a pretty good bet. G is

26:47

the next step. I would go with either

26:49

INN or G preferably. And now you have to

26:51

make sure that whatever devices you're using are compatible

26:54

with that particular protocol. Yes,

26:57

that's the eight O, two dot eleven. Yes,

26:59

proto a call with with the various flavors

27:02

A, B, G and yeah.

27:04

And so if you have a if you have a

27:06

device that is running

27:09

that it can accept G. I mean, these

27:11

are all different kinds of radio frequencies, but

27:13

it is designed for a G frequency

27:16

then G rated. Yeah,

27:19

and you have an N router, it's not gonna work.

27:21

They are not compatible. You have to have one

27:23

that can do I mean, they're

27:25

great. There are plenty of routers out there that will do multiple

27:29

frequencies, and there are plenty of

27:31

of UH wireless

27:34

chips out there that can do multiple frequencies

27:36

as well, But you want to make sure that you do

27:38

have that compatibility in there or else. You know,

27:40

you might have the fastest connection

27:43

with the router possible, but your device

27:46

is not compatible. Also keep in mind this

27:49

is also very heavily dependent upon what your

27:52

internet service provider plan is,

27:55

because if you're you can have the

27:57

if you have the fastest router, and you think of it

27:59

like a doorway, it could be a really really

28:01

wide doorway, but the path is really

28:04

narrow once you open the door, it

28:06

doesn't help you. You have to have that broadband connection

28:08

with a really good data transfer rate

28:10

for the router to even make a difference. Um,

28:13

if you don't have that high speed internet connection,

28:16

if your cable modem or or

28:18

however you're getting your your internet.

28:21

If that is a bottleneck, the router

28:23

is not gonna help. You have to have that too.

28:26

Yeah. Keep in mind too that if your I s

28:28

P caps data, you might

28:30

keep an eye on that. Yeah, I mean,

28:32

depending on what you're doing, it may not

28:34

make a difference. Most people never reach

28:37

their I s P S data cap, although

28:39

that's that's changing as people are getting more

28:41

into like consuming streaming video.

28:44

You know. So if you are watching some

28:46

streaming video service and you're

28:48

perhaps you have it on a couple of different televisions.

28:51

I mean it's not unusual now. You might have a Roku

28:54

box on one machine one television.

28:56

You might have a an Xbox three six yr

28:58

ps three on another one. You could potentially

29:01

have five or six different televisions

29:03

all consuming streaming video. That's gonna

29:05

that's gonna cause a pretty big bottleneck too. You've gotta

29:07

have a really good Internet connection and a decent router

29:10

for that to work. It's not impossible.

29:12

Um, it's impossible with my setup,

29:15

but because I have a I have a much slower

29:17

home network. Uh. But yeah, if

29:19

you don't, um, yeah, that's

29:21

that's possible, and then that could very quickly

29:24

run up against a data cap right.

29:27

Uh, did you want to touch on There's

29:30

one one issue I thought it might be interesting

29:32

to touch on. UM. That's in the

29:34

routers article on how stuff works dot com. And

29:36

that's what happens when

29:38

people intentionally try to clog

29:40

a network hit

29:44

me up with it. That would be a do OS

29:46

denial of a denial of service

29:48

attack. UM. And basically,

29:51

in these attacks, UH,

29:54

what happens is someone will

29:56

intentionally send as

29:58

many packets as possible to the

30:00

same spot. So basically,

30:03

remember we were talking just a few moments ago

30:05

about how

30:07

routers are aware of what else is going on

30:10

in the network, and they talk to one another

30:12

and they can they communicate. Well, if you know

30:14

where there is a specific router, uh.

30:16

And it leads to say,

30:18

say you're some someone who is who has

30:21

a grievance against the company, and you know where their

30:23

their router is, you can send

30:26

you know, billions of packets to it. Uh.

30:28

Someone's going to correct me and say they can't be that

30:30

many, but let's say lots and lots of packets

30:32

to it in an attempt to overwhelm

30:34

the router and give it so much traffic that it

30:36

cannot UM handle it, and it

30:38

will cause it to UH

30:41

have errors. Basically, it will become really

30:43

sluggish or possibly even

30:45

have it just shut down. Yeah,

30:48

it's certainly been known to happen in then variation

30:50

of this which is becoming more

30:52

common as the d d O S or distributed denial

30:54

of service attack, which happens a lot in a lot

30:57

of cases with UH bot nets

30:59

where people have UM installed

31:01

some kind of malware on their computer and someone

31:03

is running this attack to UH

31:05

you know, basically take over possibly

31:08

thousands of computers and have all of them

31:10

send an attack against one target

31:13

at the same time. Which, as you might

31:15

imagine, if you had thousands

31:17

of computers working on this problem

31:20

as it were sending sending requests

31:22

at the speed of light all to a single

31:24

target, it's it's very easy to overwhelm

31:26

a single router with that kind

31:28

of UH with that kind of traffic. So

31:31

UM when you when you hear about these attacks,

31:34

you can keep that in mind, that that there's

31:36

some router somewhere that it's doing its

31:38

level best to handle the traffic, but

31:40

it is just not keeping up with a flood

31:43

of UH packets swarming

31:45

at it. And also on

31:47

that same note, because a router

31:50

is essentially a computer. You can

31:52

install software on that

31:54

router so that it has its own

31:57

protections against such things.

31:59

So when you hear about people

32:01

talking about firewalls, there are various ways

32:03

you can have a firewall. You can a computer firewall,

32:06

you can have it as a software layer, you can have it as a

32:08

hardware layer. Well, routers kind of a hardware

32:10

layer level firewall. A lot of routers

32:12

come with a firewall system

32:15

in place that you can configure once you

32:17

set up your router, and this will help

32:19

protect your home network system from intrusions

32:22

from malware coming in, uh, from

32:25

unrequested data coming in,

32:27

so sort sort of a spam protector

32:29

as well. UM, and routers can also have other

32:32

kinds of software programmed into

32:34

them, things like encryption, UM,

32:37

intrusion detection, that kind of stuff. So,

32:40

uh, depending on the model of router,

32:43

that'll that'll tell you

32:45

what kind of protection is built into the system.

32:47

And uh, you know, it's not uncommon

32:50

to find routers come with firewall

32:53

software and pre installed in the router

32:55

itself, which is also very useful. It

32:57

do highly recommend that if you know, if you're

32:59

setting up a home area network and you want to uh,

33:02

you want to have a router there to connect to

33:04

the internet. Setting up a firewall is a

33:06

very good stuff. It's not just

33:09

like any other security system on the Internet.

33:11

I have to stress it's never

33:13

full proof. You're never going to have the perfect

33:16

security system because people are ingenious

33:19

at getting around uh

33:21

firewalls and other kind of barriers.

33:23

But it does mean that you're

33:25

going to prevent the

33:28

overwhelming percentage of attacks

33:30

from getting to you because most people are

33:33

also lazy, so they're gonna

33:35

aim for a wide array

33:37

of targets and they're gonna be happy if they just hit

33:39

a few of those targets. They're not necessarily

33:42

aiming directly for you, unless you're

33:44

some sort of important individual with

33:46

like a government or perhaps

33:48

a news agency or

33:50

something like that. If you have like a high profile

33:53

status, then you might have to worry

33:55

about more stringent security. But

33:57

for the average user, it doesn't. You know,

34:00

a decent viral wall is enough. Yeah,

34:04

Indecent fire walls are never enough. Well.

34:08

I think that's a good discussion on routers.

34:10

We really pretty much covered the basics there,

34:12

and like I said, if you want to learn more, visit how

34:15

stuff works dot com. Check out our articles

34:17

on how routers work and how network address

34:19

translation works. Um those

34:21

those articles are very helpful to understand

34:23

the ins and outs of how this data

34:26

goes across. There's also some great animations and everything

34:28

that show this in action. So if you have problems

34:30

visualizing it, check out the website. It

34:32

really does help. And guys, if you

34:34

have any requests that

34:37

you would like us to address uh

34:39

huh, you can let us know via

34:42

email our addresses, text stuff

34:44

at how stuff Works dot com,

34:46

or send us a little message on that Facebook

34:49

or Twitter thing. Both of those

34:51

places are handle is tech Stuff

34:53

hs W and Chris and I will talk

34:55

to you again really soon. Be

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