Project 4: NetworkingFall 2024

This project counts for 9% of your course grade. Late submissions will be penalized by 15% of the maximum attainable score. If you or your partner have a conflict due to travel, interviews, etc., please plan accordingly and turn in your project early.

This is optionally a group project; you may work in teams of two and submit one project per team. You may also work alone.

The code and other answers you submit must be entirely your team’s own work, and you are bound by the Honor Code. You may discuss the conceptualization of the project and the meaning of the questions, but you may not look at any part of someone else’s solution or collaborate with anyone other than your partner. You may consult published references, provided that you appropriately cite them (e.g., with program comments). Visit the course website for the full collaboration policy.

Solutions must be submitted via the Autograder, following the submission details at the end of this spec.

Introduction

This project will introduce you to network protocols, to network packet trace analysis, and why large, interconnected systems are difficult to engineer from the perspectives of networking and authentication.

Objectives

  • Gain exposure to core network protocols and concepts.
  • Gain appreciation for the design considerations around networked services and authentication in an enterprise setting.
  • Understand offensive techniques often used to infiltrate these settings.

Read this First

This project asks you to perform attacks, with our permission, against controlled and simulated environments. Attempting the same kinds of attacks against other networks without authorization is prohibited by law and university policies and may result in fines, expulsion, and jail time. You must not attack any network without authorization!

Investigation

You have been invited to join a mysterious group called f-society and the leader, Mr. Robot, asks you to investigate a cyber attack to prove your skills. Few details have been shared with you at this point, but you have heard that you’ll be getting more direction shortly. Once you hear further from Mr. Robot, this document won’t be very useful; you’ll need to get updates from inside f-society going forward.

Because this is an ongoing investigation, please refrain from sharing any details outside your partnership (if you have a partner).

Set up your environment according to the instructions in the submission details, then head over to f-society’s website for more information.

Wireshark

As part of your investigation, you will be using Wireshark, a tool for capturing, parsing, viewing, and analyzing network traffic. It comes installed in the project’s Docker container. When you open the project in the container in VS Code, you can navigate to http://localhost:3235 in your browser to open Wireshark.

Points

Mr. Robot has informed us to award the following points for each check-in:

  • Check-in #0 25 pts

  • Check-in #1 25 pts

  • Check-in #2 20 pts

  • Check-in #3 15 pts

  • Check-in #4 15 pts

Submission Details

  1. Create a repo using the the GitHub template. Make sure that the repo you create is private.

  2. Clone the repo onto your system (you’ll need to supply your GT credentials for this), then open it in VS Code. Make sure all the Docker containers for previous labs and projects, including this lab, are shut down before setting up the environment for the current project

  3. If you successfully set up Docker, you should be greeted with a pop-up in the bottom right asking you to re-open the directory in the development container; do so now!

  4. It will take some time to build the container, and once done, you should be able to see the project files in a directory and a terminal connected to the container (as shown in the Docker guide).

    Git Guide: If you’re unfamiliar with using Git/GitHub, check out this guide to help you get started.

  5. Visit the project on the autograder, and optionally create a team. Ensure that only one team member makes submissions to the Autograder to avoid confusion.

    Networking Project Autograder

    You can submit solutions up to 20 times per day. If this limit is exceeded, you will have to wait till 12:00 AM the next day to submit again.

Once you’re done with the project, you can delete the Docker container to reclaim resources on your computer. Don’t delete the entire Docker installation (you’ll need it for a future project), just the container.