Sec572 Research Paper
Michael Amic
SEC572
You Decide #2
Computer networks are bunches of computers connected to each other. That is, either physical wires run between computers-wires in an office (LAN), dedicated phone lines (DSL), dial-up connections, fiber optic, or there is an electromagnetic connection-radio links or microwaves. Simply, when one computer wants to talk to another, it creates a message called a packet. The packet has the destination computer’s name on it and sends it to the computer over this network. Computers don’t use circuits to talk to each other. They don’t have conversations like people do. They send short data packets back and forth. These packets are broken-up pieces of anything: e-mails, gifs, streaming video or audio, or Internet phone calls. Computers divide …show more content…
These packets are sent through the network by routers. There are lots of protocols-Ethernet, TCP, or whatever, but they all work basically the same way. Routers look at the address on the packets, and then send them toward their destination. They may not know where the destination is, but they know something about where it should go. It’s not hard to see that any network built on this model is terribly insecure. Consider the Internet. As those packets pass from router to router, their data is open to anyone who wants to read it. The routers are only supposed to look at the destination address in the packet header. Packets have source and destination information, but an attacker can modify them at will. An attacker can create packets that seem to come from one site, but don’t really. There are routing attacks where an attacker tells two points on the Internet that the shortest route between them goes through the attacker’s computers (243), according to Schmauder (2000). The solutions to these
SEC572
You Decide #2
Computer networks are bunches of computers connected to each other. That is, either physical wires run between computers-wires in an office (LAN), dedicated phone lines (DSL), dial-up connections, fiber optic, or there is an electromagnetic connection-radio links or microwaves. Simply, when one computer wants to talk to another, it creates a message called a packet. The packet has the destination computer’s name on it and sends it to the computer over this network. Computers don’t use circuits to talk to each other. They don’t have conversations like people do. They send short data packets back and forth. These packets are broken-up pieces of anything: e-mails, gifs, streaming video or audio, or Internet phone calls. Computers divide …show more content…
These packets are sent through the network by routers. There are lots of protocols-Ethernet, TCP, or whatever, but they all work basically the same way. Routers look at the address on the packets, and then send them toward their destination. They may not know where the destination is, but they know something about where it should go. It’s not hard to see that any network built on this model is terribly insecure. Consider the Internet. As those packets pass from router to router, their data is open to anyone who wants to read it. The routers are only supposed to look at the destination address in the packet header. Packets have source and destination information, but an attacker can modify them at will. An attacker can create packets that seem to come from one site, but don’t really. There are routing attacks where an attacker tells two points on the Internet that the shortest route between them goes through the attacker’s computers (243), according to Schmauder (2000). The solutions to these