La Trobe University, Bendigo

Division of Information Technology

BITCNE: Computer Networks

Assignment 3 1998 - Semester 2

This assignment sheet is (ever so) slightly incomplete

Answer ONE ONLY of the following questions.

1. There have been various electronic payment (or electronic cash) systems designed for payment for goods and services on the Web. Not many of these have, to my knowledge, actually been widely implemented. You task in this question is to discover any electronic cash systems which have been actually implemented on commercial websites. We aren't interested in the traditional credit-card approach, and I don't want a report on how the different e-cash systems operate, rather I want to know who is using these systems right now.
2. Based on publically available pricing at Telstra, Optus, connect.com.au, Access 1, etc, write a report on the economics of becoming an ISP.
3. You have been retained as a consultant by a small(ish - you decide how big) Central Victorian business to advise them on their options for obtaining Internet access. They initially want straightforward email service, but wish to keep their options open in terms of future use of the net, in particular the possibility of establishing an "electronic storefront" for Internet commerce. Write a report detailing their options, using (as much as possible) real world costings for the proposed services. Note that it is not sufficient to get prices from a single provider, and that the economics of Internet access are far from straightforward.
4. This question is about network security. Your task is to investigate public key cryptosystems. In particular, you should investigate PGP (Phil Zimmerman's Pretty Good Privacy package), available on the departmental Unix systems. You are required to create a personal PGP public/private key pair, and use your private key to encrypt an email message (as below) to your lecturer. You must then provide your public key to the lecturer in such a way that the lecturer is absolutely certain of the origin of the encrypted (or signed) message. Your email message should be a report which covers what you did, why you did it, and a brief discussion of the current status of PGP, given the recent appearance of PGP Inc.
5. Use tkined to build a network management system for the Bendigo campus, monitoring most of the interesting pieces of equipmen in the campus network. Perhaps you could use one of the other many SNMP packages available, see below.
6. As mentioned in Tute 15, one of the hottest things around in network management at the moment is integrating it with the WWW. You topic here is to find out all you can about browser front ends for network management, integration of browsers and Java with SNMP, and the idea of running Web servers on routers and the like. I'm particularly interested in hard, practical information on what people are really doing with this stuff.
7. The standard (free) SNMP package for Unix is tkined. There are many other SNMP-based network monitoring packages in existence, particularly for Windoze systems, although there are a few for Macs. Discover two (or more) such packages, install them and report on their usefulness.
8. One of the hot issues in the Internet at present is that of censorship. In the USA, there have been several legislative attempts to censor the the 'net (eg, the Communications Decency Act), none of which have succeeded yet. Many other countries (in particular, Australia) are either proceeding down this path, or have hinted at possible future legislation. Meanwhile, some jurisdictions have simply gone ahead and implemented censorship, using various forms of "border router" (firewall) filtering as well as draconian licensing regulations. Your task here, then, is to briefly document the current state of censorship on the Internet, and discuss some technical aspects of the problem of enforcement.
9. Investigate SOCKS. This software is frequently used as a circuit-level firewall, and is something that you could come across in the Real World(tm). Tell me how it works, how you configure it, and what it can do for you. Incidentally, it might be easiest if you stick with SOCKS V.4 - the V.5 version is somewhat more complicated.
10. Investigate steganography, and in particular how it relates to encryption and the Internet. This is a fun topic, because you should discover lots of interesting software (eg, one I occasionally use is called snow) and applications.
11. As before, another topic with the explicit prior approval of your lecturer. If you are interested in something under this heading, you must email me (with [BITCNE] at the start of the subject line, as usual) stating your proposal.

You should expect to write something between 1500 and 3000 words on the topic of your choice, although this is not mandatory. You have two options for submission of your assignment: traditional hard copy (paper) form, or on-line using a web page dedicated to this assignment. Your choice of submission format will not, in any way, affect the mark which you obtain, although students choosing electronic submission should consult the guidelines available on the BITCNE home page before proceeding to submit via this method. Submissions must, in general, adhere to the requirements of the LaTrobe University, Bendigo Assignment Guide.

This assignment carries 20% of your mark for Computer Networks.

Due Date: End of semester 2, 1998.
Lecturer and tutor: Phil Scott 5444 7277, p.scott@latrobe.edu.au