THE LATEST THINKING
Every story.
Browse our articles in publication order, with new stories added automatically.
Basics 3 min read
Content-Distribution Networks
Sites with an extremely large volume of content to distribute often turn to a specialized communication pattern called a content-distribution…
Basics 3 min read
Transport Communications Patterns
The two “classic” traffic patterns for Internet communication are these: • Interactive or bursty communications such as via ssh or…
Basics 3 min read
The Future of IPv4
As mentioned earlier, allocation of blocks of IP addresses is the responsibility of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. IANA long…
Basics 8 min read
IP Forwarding
IP routers use datagram forwarding, to deliver packets, but the “destination” values listed in the forwarding tables are network prefixes…
Basics 7 min read
IP – Internet Protocol
To solve the scaling problem with Ethernet, and to allow support for other types of LANs and point-to-point links as…
Basics 4 min read
Password Sniffing
In the fall of 1994 at Loyola University I remotely changed the root password on several CS-department unix machines at…
Basics 2 min read
LANs and Ethernet
A local-area network, or LAN, is a system consisting of • physical links that are, ultimately, serial lines • common interfacing hardware…
Basics 3 min read
Packets Again
Perhaps the core justification for packets, Baran’s concerns about node failure notwithstanding, is that the same link can carry, at…
Basics 2 min read
Congestion
Switches introduce the possibility of congestion: packets arriving faster than they can be sent out. This can happen with just…
Basics 2 min read
Routing Loops
A potential drawback to datagram forwarding is the possibility of a routing loop: a set of entries in the forwarding…
