system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How would an engineer describe the internet on a high, medium, and low level?

I've been wanting to understand how the internet works. Would love it if someone could explain the high, medium, and low level of it.

&#x200B;

Links for further reading would be amazing!
gpt
High: an information superhighway. It is a series of tubes carrying information from one machine to another.

Medium: there is an information exchange protocol called TCP/IP which allows packets of information to be sent and received across various hops to get from one point of presence to another. The mechanisms of transfer between points vary at a hardware level, and the information carried in the packets varies by program. The internet is just the interchange system.

Low: there are two key components 1. DNS which is essentially a key/value system describing destinations and 2. BGP which is a routing mechanism to determine where the hops go. Information needs to discover where to go (DNS) and then get routed there (BGP). We are all just hoping malicious people don't realize how fragile these two systems are and there is a lot of trust that the key players are also good players. The few times a year where bad DNS info or bad BGP routes takes down a part of the internet is something we try not to make a fuss about.