ITC8060

Network Protocol Design (ITC8061, 6 ECTS)

This module focuses on fundamental problems of network protocols and various design decisions and it's implications. This will also include security related protocols and give a better understanding why it is sometimes so hard to secure the Internet. As an exercise we will develop and implement our own protocol.

This module requires some programming skills (or a LOT of motivation to spend a LOT of time on learning algorithms and programming languages on top of the network-protocol related challenges). See also here for more detailed information.

The lectures and seminar discussions will Wednesday, 14.00 - 15.30. We will use distance learning MS-Teams channel due to the pandemic situation.

Lectures:
    27 Jan  Introduction & Layers, naming and addressing  
    03 Feb  Routing Theory I (Bellman-Ford)
    10 Feb  Routing Theory II (Dijkstra + BGP) 
    17 Feb  Socket Programming & Exercises 
    03 Mar  TCP, Reliability & Scanning
    10 Mar  Design Requirement Workshop  
    17 Mar  DNS, DNSsec & CDNs
    24 Mar  Secure Exchanges (including Diffie-Hellman, TLS, IPsec, SSH, PGP)
    31 Mar  Attack & Protocol Security (MiTM, Web security, Kerberos authentication)  

Protocol Design & Development:  
    07 Apr  Design Workshop   
    14 Apr  Presentation about Design Specs 

Implementation: 
    21 Apr  Implementation week 1
    28 Apr  Implementation week 2

Testing:
    05 May  Testing with other groups   
    12 May  Demonstration / "Exam" MANDATORY ATTENDANCE (demonstrate your code, oral exam on lecture content)            

Reading recommendations:

• Kurose, Ross, “Computer networking: a top-down approach". Pearson.
• John Day, “Patterns in network architecture: a return to fundamentals”. Prentice Hall.
• Olivier Bonaventure. “Computer Networking: Principles, Protocols, and Practice” http://inl.info.ucl.ac.be/cnp3