This course gives an introduction to computer security and cryptography, and then goes on to consider security as it relates to a single, network connected, computer. Introductory material is independent of any operating system but the consideration of tools will focus on those available for Linux, partly because its open-source nature facilitates this and partly because it is widely used on server systems. The introduction to cryptography will be used to consider its use in encryption and authentication.

We are living in a world of multiple networking technologies, either wired or wireless. There is a need for these network technologies to converge in order to provide seamless services to end users. This course is to look into the fundamentals towards this goal. This course will begin with the motivation behind network and service convergence and then introduce the network architectures that are being deployed today. Then quality of service (QoS) metrics such as delay, jitter, packet loss, etc. and QoS mechanisms will be introduced. The course will go on into various types of service and network convergences covering wireless + wireless convergence and wired + wireless convergence. The course will then describe fundamentals of a key issue that is common for any type of convergence: mobility. Finally the course will finish by introducing a clean-slate future Internet technology called ICN (Information Centric Networking).

What are the main challenges when using wireless connections? And what are the higher-layer techniques for exploiting wireless physical links? Study the technology underlying current and future wireless communications systems. Understand the concepts of radio transmissions and the different types of multiple access techniques.