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logo img  50.005 CSE

Network Security

This section contains the syllabus and materials for the second part of 50.005. You can find Weekly learning objectives below, and an even more comprehensive objectives in each of the notes.

Textbook

Kurose and Ross. Computer Networking – A Top-Down Approach, 7th Ed. Pearson. ISBN 978-0-273-76896-8. (required) - Abbreviated as “KR” in this document.

Week 8: KR Ch. 1.1, 1.3, 1.5

  • Explain what a network is and the internet
  • Discuss challenges for the internet
  • Explain what protocol means
  • Explain the difference and pros/cons between time domain multiplexing, frequency domain multiplexing, and packet switching
  • Explain the concept of priority inversion and emergent behavior
  • Know the internet protocol stack
  • Explain why layering is important in designing internet structure
  • Draw the internet structure

Week 9: KR Ch. 1.4

  • Describe and explain sources of packet delay through the network
  • Explain the difference between propagation delay and transmission delay
  • Describe the causes of processing delay
  • Compute total nodal delays
  • Compute effective throughput between two end systems
  • Explain how traceroute and ping works, as well as their applications

Week 10: KR Ch. 8.1 - 8.5

  • Explain what are the possible security issues in the network / internet
  • Describe desired security properties and their applications
  • Explain basic cryptography techniques
  • Explain concepts of symmetric and asymmetric keys, as well as their pros/cons
  • Explain applications of keys: confidentiality, authentication, integrity, authentication protocol and design issues, as well as secure emails
  • Explain various possible security attack scenarios depending on which cryptography techniques are or are not utilised
  • Describe how public-key certification works

Week 11: KR Ch. 2.1, 2.4

  • Explain how internet naming and addressing works
  • Explain the difference between mnemonic names and IP addresses
  • Describe what is the DNS (domain name system) and its purpose
  • Explain the DNS as a distributed naming infrastructure
  • Describe design principles of the DNS infrastructure and query
  • Explain different types of DNS records
  • Explain the purpose of DNS caching and how it is done as well as maintained over time
  • Explain how dns lookup and dig works, as well as their applications

Week 12: KR Ch. 2.2, 2.7

  • Explain how basic socket programming works
  • Explain how UDP and TCP works
  • Describe the main differences between UDP and TCP, as well as their applications (pros/cons)
  • Explain client-server model of network applications
  • Explain how web server works and the HTTP (1.0, 1.1, 2, 3) requests and responses
  • Explain how cookies store user-server state and its function
  • Analyse how web caching impacts performance
  • Explain how wireshark packet sniffer and analyzer works and its application