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The Internet Stack
An accessible journey through the seam that connects the digital world of the Internet to our physical world.
The stack—the conduit between our digital and physical worlds—is the elusive, mysterious, and least-understood part of the Internet. In the five seconds it took you to read that, 100 quadrillion bits of data just whizzed through the stack. Our metaphors—cloud, virtual, cyber—blind us to the incredible The Internet is a physical dingy, wet, and rusty. In The Stack, Amrit Tiwana takes us on a journey through this gritty reality.
The book begins with its breathtaking physical layer, laden with geography, luck, and history dating to the Civil War era. Then it shows us how most Internet traffic flows deep undersea as laser beams, not up in the “cloud” via satellites. It goes on to explore how the stack constructs and deconstructs “packets” layer-by-layer, how these packets travel over rickety paths, and how the stack can assimilate stuff that has yet to be invented. Finally, it discusses how we construct resilience out of fragile parts and how quantum computing might affect the stack.
The stack—the conduit between our digital and physical worlds—is the elusive, mysterious, and least-understood part of the Internet. In the five seconds it took you to read that, 100 quadrillion bits of data just whizzed through the stack. Our metaphors—cloud, virtual, cyber—blind us to the incredible The Internet is a physical dingy, wet, and rusty. In The Stack, Amrit Tiwana takes us on a journey through this gritty reality.
The book begins with its breathtaking physical layer, laden with geography, luck, and history dating to the Civil War era. Then it shows us how most Internet traffic flows deep undersea as laser beams, not up in the “cloud” via satellites. It goes on to explore how the stack constructs and deconstructs “packets” layer-by-layer, how these packets travel over rickety paths, and how the stack can assimilate stuff that has yet to be invented. Finally, it discusses how we construct resilience out of fragile parts and how quantum computing might affect the stack.
- GenresScience
206 pages, Paperback
Published September 16, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 23, 2026
The book is a relative easy non-technical read explaining why the Internet works by revealing the Internet stack … a modular decomposition of communication tasks into five layers: Physical, Link, Internet, Transport, and Application. Each layer solves a narrowly defined problem while exposing standardized interfaces to adjacent layers. This design enables independent evolution, global interoperability, and extraordinary scalability.
The book systematically dismantles common myths, particularly the notion of a weightless, borderless “cloud.” Instead, it reveals a geographically constrained Internet shaped by history, capital investment, and political economy … under which control over physical infrastructure and lower layers increasingly determines power, resilience, and competitive advantage.
The book systematically dismantles common myths, particularly the notion of a weightless, borderless “cloud.” Instead, it reveals a geographically constrained Internet shaped by history, capital investment, and political economy … under which control over physical infrastructure and lower layers increasingly determines power, resilience, and competitive advantage.
January 9, 2026
A great short introduction to the basics of how the internet works. The book very simply explains how our digital devices actually function behind the scene and how they are literally connected to the physical world to make all the communications happen in real time. The reader will gain a better understanding of the commonly used terms such as 5G, Wi-fi, Bluetooth, undersea cables, cloud, FM etc.; and how they make us stay connected to each other and allow us to carry out almost everything that we do these days. We also get a glimpse of how the internet of things and the AI revolution really works helping the reader better understand the daily news on the fast moving internet related topics a bit better. A very informative and enjoyable read.
November 6, 2025
Simple explanations for complex processes. Well written and accessible. Additional resources offer the option to dive deeper where interested.
Will definitely access more books in this series.
Will definitely access more books in this series.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews