The Internet appears to be a vast number of devices, all inter-connected and addressable by name,

e.g. www.bbc.co.uk or e-mail addresses such as J.H.Davenport@bath.ac.uk. However, in practice,

these devices are manufactured without names, and have individual Media Access Control (MAC)
addresses permitting them to connect to a local network, be it wired or wireless.
1) Define the structure of names, and how they are organised (in particular the relationship
between bbc.co.uk and bath.ac.uk). [4]
2) Explain the structure of one common format of MAC address [2]
3) There is a third vital addressing mechanism: give its name and explain how its addresses are
organised [4]
4) What translation mechanisms exist between these various types of names/addresses? [5]
5) Explain one security risk inherent in these mechanisms, and explain how it is handled. [5]


Answers
1) Traditional DNS: names of components separated by dots, components being up to 63
characters from a restricted alphabet (details not expected). Expect the DNS tree, showing
at least the example.
2) Ethernet MACs: 48 bits, traditionally represented as 6 colon-separated hexadecimal digit
pairs.
3) IP addresses. IPv4 (all that is expected) are 32-bit addresses. The subnet mask indicates
which bits give the address of the network, and which bits are the address of the machine on
the network. Network addresses assigned by IANA/regional registries, and machine
addresses by the network manager (or DHCP on his behalf). Accept IPv6 answer.
4) DNS Type A records convert names into IPv4 addresses (AAAA into IPv6), and PTR records
convert in the other direction. ARP (address resolution protocol) gives the MAC address for a
corresponding IPv4 address on this network and RARP goes in the other direction.
5) Various options.
a. ARP spoofing I can reply with my MAC address even though its not actually my IP
address, and thus persuade you to send packets erroneously to me. Mitigating is
that the real owner (if up and not DOS-ed out) will also reply, and the recipient of
multiple replies will complain.
b. DNS poisoning TBC,
c. Others options
Howlers
1) ?
2) Many
a) Lots of people gave different lengths;
b) A common type of MAC address is IP address
c) A MAC address is assigned by creation very theological.
3) I was expecting IP addresses, which most got. Many people gave A/B/C rather than netmask.
One person said port numbers, which is legitimate.
4) Many
a) TCP is a translation mechanism UDP is another mechanism [I wonder if the student
read transmission instead of translation: another student had much the same, as did a
third].
b) The JANET could translate between these various types of names
c) Another translation mechanism is routing tables
d) A wonderful confusion of DNS and default routers
5) A security risk in these mechanisms is interception of the packets. This is handled by using a
checksum which will tell you if a packet has been tampered with in any way.