Basic journey of a packet

The purpose of this introductory article is to take a basic look at the journey of a packet across the Internet, from packet creation to switches, routers, NAT, and the packet's traverse across the Internet. This topic is recommended for those who are new to the networking and security field and may not have a basic understanding of the underlying process.

Previous articles by this author have looked at the importance of two key areas of computer security for new users: programming and networking. While they are different disciplines, both networking and programming should largely be viewed as complimentary. If it were it not for the early programming of networking protocols there would be no network. That said, does one have to be a programmer in order to fully grasp networking concepts and theory at a low level? In many cases, you do not. However, a reader's natural curiosity will likely lead him toward programming at some point, in order to further experiment with various protocols and networking theory.