Course: Introduction to Internet Measurements

Description

The Internet, a vast communication network connecting digital devices, is one of humanity’s most remarkable engineered systems. Despite its significance, there is surprisingly little quantitative understanding of its structure, size, and functionality, given its unprecedented pace. Such an understanding is crucial to support the commercial, social, and technical needs of the Internet. First, effective commerce requires an understanding of the Internet’s performance and its resilience against security attacks. Second, measuring network activity allows an understanding of the social implications of Internet use, such as the popularity of content, new applications, and privacy protection of users. Finally, measurements can help inform the design of new network components and new protocols. In this course, we will introduce the students to the principles and practice of Internet measurements.  The students will learn the tools, techniques, and methodologies used to understand the performance, reliability, security, and privacy of the Internet. The students will get hands-on experience with both traditional and advanced measurement tools and large-scale measurement platforms, all while addressing the critical ethical and privacy considerations involved in data collection and analysis.

 

Teaching and learning methods

The weekly lectures serve as the primary medium for conveying the course content. The lectures will include interactive Q&A sessions. These lectures will be complemented by invited guest speakers to provide real-world context. Hands-on assignments will enable students to apply the state-of-the-art tools to perform Internet measurements to solve real-world problems. Finally, regular quizzes will be administered to test the comprehension of the students of the lecture material.  They serve as a continuous assessment mechanism, ensuring students keep up with the course content and reinforcing their understanding of fundamental principles.

 

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Explain the fundamental concepts of Internet measurements.
• Leverage standard measurement tools to diagnose and analyse basic network performance.
• Analyse network traffic to understand protocol behavior.
• Describe the structure of the Internet’s topology and the role of network paths.
• Assess the performance of applications.
• Understand challenges and ethical considerations with conducting network measurements.

Overall, the course aims to equip students with the knowledge and appreciation for the importance of measuring the Internet. 

 

(Recommended) Requirements

The students are expected to have some familiarity with how the Internet works. Familiarity with *nix-based operating systems is also expected.

 

Course Outline and Literature

A detailed course outline will be made available on Moodle.

Course materials will be drawn from recent papers in top conferences and journals, including:

• ACM SIGCOMM and USENIX Networked System Design and Implementation
• ACM Internet Measurement Conference
• USENIX Security and IEEE Security and Privacy (S&P)
• ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review (CCR)
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFCs)

 

Grading Scheme

• Hands-on Assignments - 50%
• Quizzes - 50%