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 Monday's, 10.00-11.30 in room is ICT-A1. The is optional additional time on Monday's from 12.00-13.30 for coding and time to work on the implementation and assignments in ICT-401.

Lectures:
    28 Jan  Introduction       
    04 Feb  Layers, naming and addressing  
    11 Feb  Routing Theory I (Bellman-Ford)
    18 Feb  NO LECTURE 
    25 Feb  Routing Theory II (Dijkstra) 
    04 Mar  TCP, congestion control and reliability   
    11 Mar  Application layer protocols (DNS, FTP, SSH, SMTP, POP/IMAP, HTTP, SIP,...)
    18 Mar  Security & PGP  

Protocol Design & Development:  
    25 Mar  Design Workshop I
    01 Apr  Presentation about Design Specs   
    08 Apr  AD-review / final protocol specs        

Implementation: 
    15 Apr  Implementation week 1 
    22 Apr  Implementation week 2 
    29 Apr  Testing with other groups (Note: your code MUST be ready on 29 Apr!)       

Testing:
    06 May  Security testing and abuse/misuse.  
    13 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