ICANN
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a global non-profit corporation formed to oversee a select range of Internet technical management functions currently managed by the U.S. Government, or by its contractors and volunteers. Between now and September 2000. ICANN is gradually taking over responsibility for coordinating the assignment of protocol parameters, the management of the domain name and root server systems, and the allocation of IP address space.

IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Organization that ensures that electronic devices produced by different companies can interoperate. IEEE developed the 802 family of standards that govern computer networks.

Iframe
Process of displaying a webpage within a table. Not supported in older browers. An HTML function.

IIS - Internet Information Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server. Microsoft's Web server that comes built-in with Windows NT Server 4 and Windows 2000 server. Here is Microsoft's IIS web site.

Image Map
An image displayed on the webpage that has different areas that are hyperlinks. By clicking on different parts of the image browser can be redirected to another webpage, or can display modified version of the current one.

Image swap
A function of a webpage, usually javascript, that changes the image by a certain action taking place. This is most commonly seen as a mouseover in a navigation image link.

IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol
A method allowing a client email program to access remote messages stored on a mail server. The protocol includes operations for creating, deleting, and renaming mailboxes, checking for new messages, message parsing, searching, and setting and clearing flags. IMAP was originally developed in 1986 at Stanford.

Intellectual property
The general term for intangible property rights which are a result of intellectual effort. Patents, trademarks, designs and copyright are the main intellectual property rights.

Internet
Not to be confused with internet (with lowercase i). The word Internet refers to all the computer networks worldwide that are connected together. TCP/IP is the de facto standard protocol set for Internet.

Internet backbone
An extremely fast network that connects major cities. Most often it utilizes T3 circuits and provides the bandwidth of 45Mbps.

Internet Explorer
Currently, the most widely used web brower application. Developed by Microsoft Corp.

Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
A network control protocol running on top of the IP protocol. It is used by Internet hosts to maintain information related to multicast. All machines that want to use the multicast have to have the IGMP implemented.

Internet protocol
The Internet Protocol (IP) is a network-layer (Layer 3) protocol that contains addressing information and some control information that enables packets to be routed. IP is documented in RFC 791 and is the primary network-layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite. Along with the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), IP represents the heart of the Internet protocols. IP has two primary responsibilities: providing connectionless, best-effort delivery of datagrams through an internetwork; and providing fragmentation and reassembly of datagrams to support data links with different maximum-transmission unit (MTU) sizes.

InterNIC
The organization that handles domain name registrations. See http://www.internic.net/

Intranet
A vast internal network structured in a fashion similar to the Internet. Intranets are usually established by large corporate organizations to improve communication. The main difference between the Internet and an intranet is that access to intranets are restricted to authorized members only.

IP - Internet Protocol
Short for Internet Protocol, which designates the format of "data packets" that are used to exchange information over the Internet.

IP Address
Internet Protocol Address. A unique number identifying all devices connected to the Internet. This number is usually shown in groups of numbers from 0 to 255, separated by periods, for example 207.46.230.218.

IP packet
IP packet is the basic data chunk that can be sent over the Internet. All the data is partitioned into IP packets on the sending computer and reassembled on the receiving computer.

IPX - Internet Packet Exchange
The Novell NetWare protocol that provides datagram delivery of messages. A built-in networking protocol for Novell Netware. It was derived from the Xerox Network System protocol and operates at the network layer of the OSI protocol model.

IRC - Internet Relay Chat
Multi-user chat service. IRC users can go into public or private channels to discuss a topic or transfer files. IRC servers are connected into networks. The most popular IRC client program is mIRC. Many hosts are vary of letting customers access IRC because of a possibility of a denial of service attack on the whole network.

ISDN - Integrated Services Digital Network
An international standard that governs the transmission of both voice and data. It uses a digital circuits and has speed of 64Kbps. It can be used for normal telephone service as well as data transmission.

ISO - International Organisation for Standardisation
A Geneva-based international organization that develops and publishes various international standards.

ISP - Internet Service Provider
A company that provides its subscribers with Internet access. Customers have a username and a password and can dial-up or use a cable or DSL line to connect to ISP's network which is connected to the Internet. The biggest ISP is AOL.

Iterative Query
A request, usually made by a resolver, for any information a server already has in memory for a certain domain name.

ITU - International Telecommunication Union
A United Nations organization responsible for co-ordinating global telecommunications activities, especially in the areas of standards setting, radio spectrum allocation and regulation.