# The technological foundation of internet: a boon for commodities trading



## Rosanne Szozda (Jul 21, 2010)

The technological foundation of the internet lies in distributed computing. It is a methodology by which computing can be done over several computers concurrently, that are linked to each other in a network. All *commodities trading companies* leverage upon this technology to enter into live trade from around the world. This technology has helped in significant savings in time and money. Here, data is sent and received according to a particular protocol.

In general, the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used to access files from computers linked to the internet. These files are those that are freely available to the public as distributed documents, shareware or distributed software. Three aspects are highly essential for FTP to work. They are:
•	The site address where the file is located
•	The directory that the file is in
•	The name of the file (filenames are case sensitive)

The user has to type 'ftp' at the prompt and site's address activates the FTP protocol. Then, the user needs to type in the login name and in order to login, the user can either press <enter> once or type 'anonymous' in the user Id and the e-mail address as the password, so that login process can be completed. Once the user is at the remote computer he/she will be at the 'ftp>' prompt. It is interesting to note that these robust transfer mechanisms have withstood the radical changes in technology. In addition, the important aspect is that the FTP and TELNET protocols are part of TCP/IP protocols.

The advent of online commodity trade is working wonders in the online platforms. Commodities trading processes have undergone significant changes not only in the volume of trade, but also in the type of commodities that are being traded. With the entry of China into the global market, online commodity trade has totally altered. If the international community bans trade in certain protected commodities, the Chinese online e-commerce sites will still be buying and selling these commodities.


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