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 be Tuesdays, 14.15-17.00 in room is ICT-401. This includes time for coding related questions, time to work on the implementation and assignments.

Lectures:
    27 Feb  Introduction & Layers         
    06 Mar  Routing Part / Design Workshop I      
    13 Mar  TCP & reliability / Design Workshop II    
    20 Mar  PGP & OTR / Design Workshop III  
    27 Mar  Cover-channels, anonymity, ad-hoc networks / Design Workshop IV

Protocol Design & Development:   
    03 Apr  Presentation about Design Specs         
    10 Apr  NO LECTURE - time to finalizing design specs   
    17 Apr  AD-review / final protocol specs    

Implementation: 
    24 Apr  NO LECTURE (Locked Shields-week) / Implementation week 1     
    01 May  Public Holday / Implementation week 2  

Testing:
    08 May  Testing with other groups (Note: your code MUST be ready on 7 May!)        
    15 May  Demonstration / "Exam" (demonstrate your code and submit for marking)            

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

Lecture Slides:

Introduction and Layers (27 Feb).