Elementary Information Security, 3rd Edition

▶ 10.5 The Protocol Stack

We saw how operating system designers mastered complexity by organizing the complicated details of OS software into layers. (See Section 5.7.) Network designers use the same strategy to produce the network’s protocol stack. As with the I/O system, the protocol stack forms an hourglass structure (FIGURE 10.17).

The application protocols are represented in the upper half section of the hour glass and network device drivers are represented in the bottom half section of the hour glass. The Network API with the Network protocol stack is at the center of the hour glass. The Application protocols include Printing, File ...