Final Topic List and Questions

The final exam will be short-answer and conceptual. It will focus on broad ideas instead of specifics. It will be cumulative, but focus especially on material since the midterm.

Transport Layer

Understand the difference between UDP and TCP.
Know how the transport layer uses port numbers.
Be able to explain how TCP handles lost and out of order packets.
Be able to explain how TCP uses ACK and NAK packets.
Understand the idea behind TCP pipelining.

DNS

Know what the goal of DNS is.
Understand how DNS lookup works.
Be able to explain DNS caching.
Know the difference between the different types of DNS records.

TLS and Security

Know what TLS Is used for.
Understand what TLS doesn't protect you from.
Understand the idea behind public and private key pairs.
Be able to explain the difference between HTTP and HTTPS
Know what a VPN is.
Be able to explain how passwords are stored as salted hashes.
Know what a firewall is.

Sample Questions

Why are networks broken into layers? What benefit does that give?
What are the main jobs that each layer does?
What order do the layers run in when sending data? How about receiving?
Why do we have mac addresses, IP addresses, and domain names? Why can't we just use one addressing scheme?
What is the difference between the Internet and the world wide web?
What are the trade-offs between TCP and UDP?
Why do passwords use hashes? What is the purpose of the salt?
What happens when you type www.google.com into your browser and hit enter?