Data comms assignment

Question 1

a. Five prisoners are locked up in adjacent cells in a prison. They would like to
communicate with each other but the walls and doors are too thick. One day, one of
the prisoners discovers that if he hits the water pipe in his cell with a metal spoon, the
sound travels to two cells in each direction, i.e. the sound from cell i can be heard in
cells i-2, i-1, i+1, and i+2, assuming these cells exist. After some experiments, they
discover this is true for all the cells. Over lunch, they decide to define a protocol that
will allow efficient communication. One of the prisoners has taken 441 and argues
that this is very much like an Ethernet so they decide to use the Ethernet protocol over
their Water Pipe Network. The prisoners planning the break are in five adjacent cells
that are lined up in a row. Unfortunately, there are some problems. Can you help
them?

i. Ethernet uses CSMA/CD as its medium access mechanism. Can you explain how the
three concepts that are used in CSMA/CD (CS, MA, and CD) map onto specific
aspects of this network?
[4]
ii. In the Water Pipe Network, not all cells can hear each other. What mechanism could
you use so all inmates can talk to each other? [3]
iii. As they get closer to the night they plan to escape, traffic on the Water Pipe network
increases.
iv. Unfortunately, they discover that using CSMA/CD over the Water Pipe Network
results in a significant packet loss rate. Can you identify the problem responsible for
the packet losses and propose a solution?
[4]
b. Suppose that computer A is sending a file to computer B using a private Ethernet with
no other computers using it. They are connected by 100m of wire. Bits travel at the
rate of 2 × 108m/s in this wire. Suppose the Ethernet has a bandwidth of 10 9 bits
per second (“gigabit Ethernet”).
Answer the following questions. For answers that are numbers, you must use units.
However, you do not need to carry out the calculations to write it as a single number. You
may provide a mathematical expression that yields the needed number instead.

i. Based the on the provided information, what is the latency (i.e., propagation delay) of
the connection? [3]
6
ii. How long would it take for 10 bits to finish traveling from computer A to
computer B?
[3]

iii. Suppose you measured the time it takes to transmit a 10 6 bit file from computer A
to computer B. To not include the time it takes for either computer to process the
file, you start measuring from time the first bit of the file leaves computer A until
 last bit of the file reaches computer B. Furthermore, you make sure that the
computers are fast enough that they do not limit the speed of transmission.
Nevertheless, the time you measure is longer than time you calculated above.
What factors could have resulted in this? [3]

Question 2

a. In the above network, use Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm to compute the shortest
path from E to all network nodes. Show your working in a table: each column
indicating a destination node, each row indicating an iteration of the algorithm.
[10]
b. In 2008 an ISP was reported to have hijacked traffic for YouTube causing traffic for
YouTube to be diverted into the ISP's network. At the time, YouTube used only three
IP addresses; 208.65.153.238, 208.65.153.251 and 208.65.153.253, announced as a
single prefix 208.65.152.0/22.
Despite YouTube using only three addresses, each browser's YouTube URL requests are
ultimately routed to the closest of over a dozen data-centres Google operates world-wide.

i. Describe two concepts from the course that make this possible. [2]
ii. State the smallest advertised netblock that would identify all YouTube addresses.
[1]
iii. In an attempt to resolve the problem, YouTube advertised the netblock
208.65.153.0/24, but this was the same netblock as advertised by the rogue ISP.
Why would this not solve the problem? [2]
iv. YouTube advertised two smaller netblocks, each one half of 208.65.153.0/24.
Why should this now work?
[2]
v. BGP networks may optionally filter netblocks that are below a given size. This
filtering affected the YouTube fix in (b)(iv ), but not that in (b)(iii ). Estimate the
size of the netblock filter. [1]
vi. Why does BGP implement such filtering? [2]
Question 3
 a. Consider the problem of managing traffic in a TCP connection that consist of a
wireless and optical fiber section. Discuss how the characteristics of the different
sections of the network affect the interpretation of metrics that are used to measure
congestion. Describe two approaches to resolving the issues that arise in this situation
and comment on their elegance and efficiency.
[10]
b. Describe the operation of the Slow Start Algorithm. Explain how the algorithm works
and draw a graph which explains how the algorithm behaves over time in response to
changes in network. What enhancements can be made to the standard algorithm to
make it more responsive?
[10]
Question 4

a. A sender S is sending TCP data to a mobile host M (see Figure). Initially the mobile
host is in its home network. Later on it moves to a different network and needs to use
Mobile IP in order to receive data from S. All local area networks are Ethernets.
Part 1: The sender S sends TCP data to the mobile node while is in its home network.
i. Each packet has more than one header as more than one protocol is being used to
send it. Name the protocols that are contributing headers to the packets starting
with the layer 2 protocol going up to the transport layer protocol.
[5]
ii. What are the source and destination IP addresses in the packet? [3]
Part 2: The correspondent host is sending TCP data to the mobile node which has moved to
the foreign network.
iii. What headers does each packet have (names only), starting with the layer 2 header and up
to the transport layer header, as the packets arrive at the mobile’s home agent? [3]
iv. What headers does each packet have (names only), starting with the layer 2 header and up
to the transport layer header, as the packets arrive at the mobile’s foreign agent? [2]
v. What are the source and destination IP addresses in the packet in iv.

b. You are in charge of doing traffic enforcement for a large ISP and a customer gives
you the traffic pattern that consists of a bursts of traffic sent at rate R and of length
T1, separated by periods of length T2 where no traffic is sent. You are asked to
specify the tightest token bucket parameters that will let this traffic stream through
(i.e. no packets will be dropped). “Tightest” means that you first minimize the token
bucket rate and, for the minimum token bucket rate, you then minimize the bucket
size.
i. That is the minimum token bucket rate Rb? [2]
ii. What is the minimum token bucket size Sb? [2]
iii. The customer complains that some packets get dropped but he also admits that
they may occasionally have shorter bursts that are sent at a slightly higher rate.
What would you suggest to accommodate this? [3]
Question 5

a. For a communication channel

i. Define the terms capacity and latency, explaining whether there is a strict
relationship between the capacity of a channel and its latency. [3]
ii. Using a clear example explain how the latency of a channel can have a direct
effect on the capacity of a higher-layer channel which uses it.
[8]
iii. Describe how the capacity of the higher-layer channel may be improved, without
any change to the characteristics of the underlying channel. [3]
iv. Describe in what circumstances such changes would provide only limited benefit.
[2]
 b. The figure below illustrates, for a single TCP connection, changes in the advertised
congestion window (CWND).

i. Indicate which phase of congestion control the TCP connection is in at G. [1]

ii. Indicate which phase of congestion control the TCP connection is in at E. [1]
iii. Describe the event that has occurred at D. [1]
iv. Describe the event that has occurred at F. [1]

Question 6

a. For IPv4 ISPs, each domestic installation typically gets a /32 network. You have a
complicated configuration requiring NAT and multiple IPv4 subnets.
i. Why would an IPv6 based provider allocate four /64 networks for your
premises when each /64 represents 264 addresses?
[2]
ii. A colleague has IPv6 with another provider; they only allow one /64 for each
domestic installation. In the past your colleague has used a NAT and many
IPv4 private address blocks, but keenly adopted IPv6 permitting them to
upgrade their home network. They are now using blocks of the allocated /64
and a router in their home to interconnect the subnets. Not everything is
working as they hoped; for example, sometimes IoT devices can't connect to
the Internet to update and your colleague cannot connect to their front-door
camera when at work. Explain what sort of problems your colleague may face
 along with methods by which they could verify the root cause.
[6]
iii. Explain to your colleague why you might not be able to lend them one of
your /64 allocations, even though the /64 blocks (provided to you by your ISP)
are each globally routable addresses. [2]

b. A local area network may carry several different LANs simultaneously; such a
network would be designated for known sets of HomePlug devices. Describe a
physical line coding approach for the HomePlug devices that: allows two or more
simultaneous virtual local area networks to fairly share the same physical channel, but
does not permit trivial interception of network traffic. Outline your approach along
with its benefits and drawbacks, comparing it with the simplest use of VLAN tags in
Ethernet. [10]
Question 7

a. Arriving at your college room, you plug into the wired Ethernet jack for the first time.
The network admin has a record of your MAC address and your machine can join the
network without further action on your part. Assume: Your laptop's Ethernet address
is 0a:0b:0c:0d:0e:0f, DHCP server address is 131.111.7.3, your IPv4 address will be
131.111.7.121, the gateway's IP address is 131.111.7.1, and Ethernet address is
00:01:02:03:04:05, the network netmask is 255.255.255.0
Write the series of protocol/packet exchanges that occur on the wired Ethernet link,
up until you can send a single packet to 128.232.0.20. You do not need to describe
packets after this packet has left the link. Include ARP and DHCP packets, stating the
IP and Ethernet addresses of the packets where possible.
[10]
Consider two neighbours, Fungai and Panashe. Each have wireless IPv4 routers with
integrated NAT. Each neighbour connects their laptop to their own wireless router, and each
uses appropriate utilities to examine the IP address of each laptop. They realise the laptops
have the same IP address.
i. How is that possible? [2]
ii. Justify one reason that wide-spread deployment of IPv6 would remove the need
for the NAT devices.
[2]
 iii. Justify one reason that an IPv6 user might want to continue using their NAT. [2]
iv. Further investigations show the two wireless routers are using the same wireless
channel, although with different SSIDs. Detail what this situation means, why this
situation is both possible and perfectly standards-compliant behaviour, and what
implications there are for this situation including how any negative effects can be
made less severe. [4]

Question 8

a. A spy elects to use a self-synchronizing scrambler to encode his secret message.

Explain why this will not give him any privacy and why his self-synchronising
approach would be better used by a communications engineer. [5]
b. With the assistance of annotated diagrams explain CSMA/CD and CSMA/CA. In
your explanation, note the physical constraints on packets and networks that these
approaches impose. [10]
c. Consider the network buffer sizing formula B = 2T x C
i. Explain this formula. [2]
ii. Discuss the network architecture and traffic assumptions made in the use of
this formula. [3]