CS 356 Lecture Slides and Reading Assignments

Textbook: J. F. Kurose and K. W. Ross, Computer Networking: A Top Down Approach, 5th edition, Addison Wesley, 2010 (online resources on AW website). I  have requested that this book be put on 2-hour reserve in the PCL library. 

Lecture Slides (download):  Lecture slides provided herein are to be used for educational purposes only. Please respect the intellectual property rights of their authors and do not use them for commercial profit. Most slides, more than 90%, are courtesy of Kurose and Ross (many have been revised by S.S. Lam). The balance of the slides were created by S.S. Lam from a variety of sources.  Note:  I have likely included more slides than I will cover in lectures.  Some slides will be skipped in lectures.  On the other hand, there are lecture materials that appear in the slides only but not in the textbook, and you should know them in exams.

(The following guide is subject to revision.  Before each exam, read the following again for the most up-to-date instructions.)

1. Computer Networks and the Internet

Read entire chapter 1. Note that Chapter 1 lecture slides contain materials on performance analysis not in the text.  Section 1.7 on History will not be in the exam.

2. Application Layer

Read entire chapter 2.  For Sections 2.7-2.8, you need to understand the basics and principles of TCP and UDP sockets, but there will not be any question on Java code in the exam.  (From the slides, you can see that I will cover the sections in chapter 2 in a different order.)

3. Transport Layer

Read entire chapter 3, with some exceptions:

My coverage of the material in Section 3.4 is different from your text. More specifically, I use notation and diagrams different from those used by Kurose and Ross to explain the same concepts and ideas.  Also, I have performance analysis material not in the text. You should follow the notation and math in Lecture slides instead of the text.

You can skip subsection 3.6.3 on ATM congestion control. Also, you can skip the sending rate analysis in lecture slides 90, 91, and 92.

4. Network Layer and Routing

   - You can skip materials in subsections 4.3.1, 4.3.2, 4.3.3, and 4.3.4 
   - In subsection 4.5.1, Dijkstra's algorithm is skipped in lecture since 
     you should have learned it in a lower-level CS class.  Dijkstra's algorithm
     will not be in exam but you should understand Link-State broadcast. 
   - The RIP protocol in subsection 4.6.1 and the OSPF protocol in 
     subsection 4.6.2 will be covered at a high level with details in
     the protocols omitted.  You need to know materials covered in lectures
     but not the omitted details.
   - You can skip section 4.7 on Broadcast and Multicast Routing.  I will use
     three slides in class to introduce the basic concepts.

5. Link Layer and Local Area Networks

6. Wireless and Mobile Networks

8. Security in Computer Networks

  - details of symmetric key cryptography in section 8.2.1
     will be skipped.
  - details of the RSA algorithm in subsection 8.2.2 will be skipped
     because the algorithm is covered in CS 337
  - section 8.7 on wireless LAN security will be skipped because it uses techniques already covered.