As I’ve entered the “default gateway” of the networking section, in the Cyber Security 101 module. I’ve been exposed to the networking concepts and essentials, which has opened my eyes to the internals of what a person does everyday. Accessing the internet is a task in our time that is almost intuitive, ingrained into our everyday lives, we insert what we’re looking for on the search bar, and a myriad of links, sites, images blogs, and videos appear.

I’ve never asked myself how all this was done, as its the type of operation I just expect to work, how I intend it to, without the complexity. Though now, my eyes have been given a completely broader perspective of this intuitive task. I’ve heard, seen the service known as “https” I’m certain you reading this is a phrase your definitely familiar with. After going through the information, it amazes me the amount of tasks done before it reaches the point where a hypertext transfer protocol is made. I’ve learnt that from studying about the OSI model. The OSI model is a framework that configures network communication. This model is divided into 7 layers each layer performing it’s on duties, and only interacting with the layers directly above and below. If your familiar with coding concepts, thats the best form of abstraction, at its finest! It shows a huge amount of consideration was put into what we so easily use everyday. I’m currently writing this on the internet as we speak XD!

There are a lot more concepts learnt, but I want to speacifically talk about the topics I struggled with. What I tend to do after each of the topics learnt, is throw it into AI and request questions with ranging difficulty. The entire concept of an IP address being a sort of id that identifies a device on a network is nailed on to me, but when asked to identify which ip address is public or private threw me a back and I just had to make a guess. I was wrong… Though I found out the range of private IP addresses go from 10.0.0.0 → 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 → 172.31.255.255, 192.168.0.0 → 192.168.255.255. So I made a sort of phrase to help me remeber 10, 172-sixteen-to-thirty-one, 192.168 — everything else is public. Also the fact that the first 3 octets configure the network the device belongs to, and the last on tells us the host of that IP address, or which I thought was the case. Turns out the last octet being the host depends on the subet.

Story short I have some topics to go back to and refresh, and thats the best thing, and also the thing I struggle with. I always strive to learn everything after the first try, and get pretty hard on myself when I don’t get it right away. Though thats something I’m working on, and having the resourses to go back to and refresh my knowledge is amazing!