The textbook and its uses

The assigned readings listed below are meant to provide you reinforcement and a reference for the material discussed in lectures and used for projects. The textbook that we will use for this purpose is Tanenbaum and Wetherall's, Computer Networks (5^th edition). You can find it new, used, and for rent on Amazon and the like.

The readings

• Everything else: The topics from the final few weeks of the semester...
  • Encryption: Section 8.1 (basics), Section 8.3 (public-key crypto), Section 8.7 (authentication)
  • Domain name system: Section 7.1.
  • Peer-to-peer systems: Section 7.5.4.
• Nov-02: Finishing the transport layer; data compression...
  • Transport layer -- Congestion control: Section 6.2, mostly 6.2.4; 6.3 through 6.3.2; 6.4 through 6.4.1; and 6.5 through 6.5.2, plus 6.5.8.
  • Data compression: Use the Google and the Wikipedia. Tons of material on lossless data compression, Lempel-Ziv algorithms, Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, and information entropy out there.
• Oct-25: More Internet addressing and routing, plus starting the transport layer...
  • Network layer -- IPv4 addressing: Revisit Section 5.6.
  • Network layer -- Congestion control: Section 5.3.
  • Transport layer -- Sockets: Section 6.1.
• Oct-19: Network layer's routing and the beginning of Internet addressing and routing...
  • Network layer -- more routing: Revisit Section 5.2, now through 5.2.6.
  • Network layer -- IPv4 addressing: Section 5.6, through 5.6.2.
• Oct-05: Medium access and the start of the network layer...
  • Medium access: Sections 4.2.2 through 4.2.4; Section 4.3 through 4.3.3.
  • Network layer -- routing: Section 5.2 through 5.2.3.
• Sep-28: Continuing from last week...
  • Flow control: Section 3.3 (stop-and-wait), and Section 3.4 (sliding windows).
• Sep-21: Some overlap from last week, and only one lecture (darned foot!)...
  • Data link layer -- CRC (cont.): Section 3.2 (repeat from last week).
  • Flow control -- stop-and-wait: Section 3.3. (Just begun, more next week.)
• Sep-14: This week's stuff...
  • Data link layer -- error detection (cont.): Section 3.2 (all).
• Sep-06: From this week, the topics and their corresponding sections of the book:
  • Network stacks/layers: Section 1.4., mostly 1.4.1 and 1.4.2.
  • Physical layer and media: Sections 2.1.2 and 2.1.3. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 are interesting.
  • Data link layer -- basic and error detection/correction: Sections 3.1 and 3.2 (we have not covered all of 3.2 yet).