The authors give a detailed summary about the fundamentals and the historical background of digital communication. This includes an overview of the encoding principles and algorithms of textual information, audio information, as well as images, graphics, and video in the Internet. Furthermore the fundamentals of computer networking, digital security and cryptography are covered. Thus, the book provides a well-founded access to communication technology of computer networks, the internet and the WWW. Numerous pictures and images, a subject-index and a detailed list of historical personalities including a glossary for each chapter increase the practical benefit of this book that is well suited as well as for undergraduate students as for working practitioners.