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Private Networks vs. Public Networks
(LAN's vs. the Internet)

When we use the term Private Network, what we're really talking about is called a LAN.

LAN stands for Local Area Network.

A LAN is basically defined as a small private network where all computers on the LAN have a direction connection to each other.

What this meant before Personal Firewalls became common on individual computers is that if 2 computers were on the same LAN, they could basically see everything about the other computer. There was very little protection from each other if one of them wanted to do something wrong.

A public network, however, like the internet behaves under the same rules where if 2 computers are on the same network, in this case the public network (the internet), they can see each other, and potentially have little protection from each other.

But, most people don't connect to the public network directly anymore. Some people still choose to plug their cable modem directly into the back of their laptop, but for what I've stated above, this is usually a very bad idea for any length of time because all connections to that computer are exposed.

So, when we speak about the public network of the internet, it's really a collection of public and private networks, and here's what I mean.

Just like a Switch acts like a bicycle spoke for all computers on a single network, the internet acts like a bicycle spoke for all of the private networks in the world.

So, from any private network or LAN in the world, you can see any other private network in the world as long as their firewall will allow you to see it.

Return to What is a Wireless Network.