Examination Paper: May/June 2018 COMP2211-WE01

Page 1 COMP2211-WE01
EXAMINATION PAPER
Examination Session: Year: Exam Code:
May/June 2018 COMP2211-WE01
Title: Networks and Systems
Time Allowed: 2 hours
Additional Material provided: None
Materials Permitted: None
Calculators Permitted: Yes Models Permitted: CASIO FX-83 GTPLUS and

Casio FX-85 GTPLUS
Visiting Students may use dictionaries: Yes
Instructions to Candidates: Answer ALL questions.
Please answer each section in a separate answer booklet.
Revision:
Page 2 of 5 COMP2211-WE01
Section A Networks
(Dr Sardar Jaf)
Question 1
(a) Describe three properties of a connectionless network data transmission.

[3 Marks]
(b) Outline the operation of each of the following physical layer multiplexing
schemes: [4 Marks]
i. Time Division Multiplexing

ii. Frequency Division Multiplexing
(c) The following character encodings are used in a data link protocol:
A: 01000111
B: 11100011
FLAG: 01111110
ESC: 11100000
Show the bit sequence transmitted (in binary) for the four character frames
A B ESC FLAG when each of the following framing methods is used:
i. Byte count.
ii. Flag bytes with byte stuffing.
iii. Starting and ending flag byte with bit stuffing.
[6 Marks]
(d) Outline the key stages of CSMA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access) / CD
(Collision Detection) as it would operate for multiple nodes (i.e. hosts /
computers / devices) connected to a common wired medium of communi-
cation. [6 Marks]
(e) Outline the following two issues related to wireless networking:
i. The hidden station/node problem

ii. The exposed station/node problem [6 Marks]
End of Section A continued

Section B Distributed Systems

(Dr Frederick Li)
Question 2
(a) Describe the main functionality of a stub in a remote method invocation.

Explain how a stub is created and executed. [4 Marks]
(b) Discuss whether the stub technology is an essential component of the

message-oriented middleware. [4 Marks]
(c) Suppose an active replication system comprises four servers to provide the
same remote services. The system occasionally has two servers failing at
the same time.
Explain whether this server failing situation imposes any fatal problem to
the system. If yes, suggest a solution. Otherwise, describe how the remote
services keep running correctly when two servers fail. [6 Marks]
(d) Define the term “linearizability”, and justify its importance to an active
replication system. Suggest how linearizability can be practically imple-
mented in such a system. [6 Marks]
(e) Suppose a centralized deadlock detection server is running on a highly-

loaded distributed system to discover distributed deadlocks. Explain why
accurate deadlock detection cannot be always guaranteed in such a dis-
tributed system.
Justify whether the sender-initiated load distributing algorithm can solve
this problem. [5 Marks]
End of Section B continued

Section C Security
(Dr Chris Willcocks)
Question 3
(a) Explain the difference between symmetric key and asymmetric key cryp-
tography, and state an example application where each would be used.
[4 Marks]
(b) State four desirable properties of a cryptographic hash function. [4 Marks]
(c) In the context of databases, explain and give an example of:
i. An obscure query.
ii. An inference attack.
You do not need to write SQL in your answers. [6 Marks]
(d) Explain what “IP spoofing” is, and explain how you can protect against an
IP spoofing attack. [4 Marks]
(e) A company specialises in annotating large geographic datasets for the oil
industry. There are 70 employees (Group A) who have no specialist knowl-
edge of the data, and annotate it based on a few hours of training. There
are also 10 specialist employees (Group B) who have PhDs in Geology and
can label the data to a high degree of accuracy.
Unfortunately all 80 employees are reading and writing over each others
data annotations and the overall annotation quality is inconsistent. You
are implementing a system to fix this problem for future annotations.
Would you recommend either the Bell-LaPadula Model or the Biba Model
for the company? List the read and write policies as determined by your
chosen model for each group accordingly.
[7 Marks]
End of Section C continued

Section D Compiler Design

(Dr George Mertzios)
Question 4
(a) Using the appropriate conditions on the grammar productions, explain when
a grammar is context sensitive, when it is context free, and when it is a
regular grammar. [6 Marks]
(b) Explain what is a synthesized attribute in a syntax-directed definition

(SDD). [2 Marks]
(c) i. Demonstrate with a simple example and using parse trees that the
following grammar is ambiguous:
T → T ∗T | T +T | T −T | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 0
[6 Marks]
ii. Rewrite this grammar by applying left factoring to it. Does the new
grammar become unambiguous? [3 Marks]
(d) Construct the leftmost derivation and the rightmost derivation of the string
c − (a + b) in the following grammar, where S is the start symbol:
S → S+A
S → A
A → A−B
A → B
B → (S)
B → a
B → b
B → c
[8 Marks]
END OF PAPER

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Page 1 COMP2211-WE01

May/June 2018 COMP2211-WE01

Title: Networks and Systems

Time Allowed: 2 hours

Additional Material provided: None

Materials Permitted: None

Calculators Permitted: Yes Models Permitted: CASIO FX-83 GTPLUS and

Instructions to Candidates: Answer ALL questions.

Please answer each section in a separate answer booklet.

(a) Describe three properties of a connectionless network data transmission.

i. Time Division Multiplexing

(e) Outline the following two issues related to wireless networking:

i. The hidden station/node problem

End of Section A continued

Section B Distributed Systems

(a) Describe the main functionality of a stub in a remote method invocation.

(b) Discuss whether the stub technology is an essential component of the

(e) Suppose a centralized deadlock detection server is running on a highly-

End of Section B continued

(b) State four desirable properties of a cryptographic hash function. [4 Marks]

(c) In the context of databases, explain and give an example of:

You do not need to write SQL in your answers. [6 Marks]

End of Section C continued

Section D Compiler Design

(b) Explain what is a synthesized attribute in a syntax-directed definition

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