Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines

Unit Code
MN610
Unit Title
Virtual Private Networks
Assessment Type
Individual
Assessment Title
Assignment 1 - VPN Technologies and Issues
Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)
The purpose of this assignment is to review existing literatures on important VPN technologies and
issues and write an article. The article must be specific to the given topics, use appropriate
examples and detail of the topic given to develop a review paper. After the assignment, students are
expected to learn not only the knowledge and current technical aspects of VPN but also research,
data collection, analysis and writing skills, which are very important and help them for study.
Weight
15%
Total Marks
30
Word limit
See the instructions
Due Date
21 August (11:55PM Wednesday) T2-2017.
Submission Guidelines
• All work (including Part A and B) must be submitted on Moodle by the due
date along with a completed Assignment Cover Page.
• The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Calibri
(Body) font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section
headings. Note: Part A of the assignment must conform to the instruction, e.g. IEEE
format.
• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed
appropriately at the end in a reference list using IEEE referencing style.
Extension
• If an extension of time to submit work is required, a Special Consideration
Application must be submitted directly to the School's Administration Officer, in Melbourne
 on Level 6 or in Sydney on Level 7. You must submit this application three working days
prior to the due date of the assignment. Further information is available at:
http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-publications/policies-procedures-and-
guidelines/specialconsiderationdeferment
Academic Misconduct

• Academic Misconduct is a serious offence. Depending on the seriousness of

the case, penalties can vary from a written warning or zero marks to exclusion from the
course or rescinding the degree. Students should make themselves familiar with the full
policy and procedure available at: http://www.mit.edu.au/about-mit/institute-
publications/policies-procedures-and-guidelines/Plagiarism-Academic-Misconduct-Policy-
Procedure. For further information, please refer to the Academic Integrity Section in your
Unit Description.
 Assignment Description
Tasks:
There are two parts to this assignment, i.e. part A and part B.
• Write a review article for the following topics depending on the last digit of your ID:
select Topic 1 if it ends in an ‘odd’ number or Topic 2 if it ends in an ‘even’ number.
25 marks

• Presentation
5 marks
Part A description:
• Topic 1 – VPN Replacement Technologies
VPN has some major drawbacks and problems such as the ones described below. There have been
attempts to resolve the issues, and some technologies are being deployed as alternatives, e.g. Microsoft
DirectAccess, SoftEther VPN etc. Review alternative options to resolve and overcome the problems of
legacy VPN.
• Congestion, latency, fragmentation, and packet loss
• Difficulties with compliance and troubleshooting
• Encrypted traffic does not compress
• Lacks repeating patterns
• More bandwidth-intensive than clear-text transmission
• Connectivity requires high availability

• Topic 2 – VPN Security Issues

Fundamentally, VPN is known as being secure and safe; however, there are still many issues with regards
to security aspects. A simple Google search of ‘VPN security’ displays 2.8 million results. Search the
internet for relevant articles/papers, and compare and analyze what these security issues are and what
solutions they propose.
• http://www.pcworld.com/article/2943472/vpn-users-beware-you-may-not-be-as-safe-
as-you-think-you-are.html
• https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/commercial-vpn-huge-security-flaws/
• https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/89017/what-are-security-risks-of-
connecting-to-my-home-vpn-from-my-work
• https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/vpns/remote-access-vpn-security-
concerns-policy-enforcement-881
Instructions: Prepare your article as below
• Go to the IEEE website and download the WORD template for the format.
https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/author_templates.html
• Another link for the template:
https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/journmag/ieee_tj_template_17.pdf
 • Read and familiarize yourself with the instructions carefully.
• Prepare a paper using the IEEE format and the example attached. Follow the template
if there are any confusions. Also, refer to the link below to have ideas how to start (see section 6).
(https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/author_guide_interactive.pdf)
• Complete the assignment (minimum 5 and maximum 8 pages) including all the
sections below. The number of words will be counted thoroughly and you must keep the minimum
number of words to avoid any penalties.
• Title (maximum 15 words)
• Abstract (200 – 250 words)
• Introduction (800 – 1000 words)
• Literature Review (1000 – 1500
words)
• Main body (1200 – 1800
words)
• Conclusion (250 – 350 words)
• Future Works (150 – 300 words)
• References (minimum 15
references)
• The article must be a ‘Review’ article including at least 15 references and not more
than 25.
• Strictly follow the IEEE reference format for in-body citations and the references
section.
• See the attached files for guidance on how to prepare a review paper. You can also
find thorough instructions from IEEE and the Internet.
• Contents must include:
• History and background of the topic
• What are the challenges and drawbacks, what solutions and workouts they found
• Possible options (solutions) and future research areas proposed
• Scopes of topic, progress of developments such as requirements, benchmarking,
purposes & objectives, stakeholders, owners, roles and responsibilities where applicable.
• Flowchart
• Include a minimum of two (2) figures to show the overall concept and summarized
overview of the topic from the review of minimum 10 – 15 (but not limited to) papers.
• Include a couple of tables to summarize the result of findings
• How each organization approaches, initiates, develops procedures and ownerships,
and what results they got, and how it affected their businesses.
• What you conclude in terms of the topic/solutions to implement in an organization.
Consider other aspects to include for a good review paper.
• Remember to strictly follow the template and the instructions above to avoid
penalties.
 • No plagiarism is allowed. Level 1 or Level 2 warning notice may be issued for a
single breach.

Part B description:
Prepare slides (between 10 – 15 slides) for presentation during the lab class. Read the instruction attached
carefully. For example, you must submit the presentation file in Moodle so that you can be allocated a session
during a lab class for your presentation.

Marking criteria:
Marks are allocated as indicated on each question, taking the following aspects into account:

Aspects
Description

Identification and Analysis and description

Correctly identifying, appropriateness, discussion
See below item 3
Explanation/justification
Description and justification
See below item 3
Presentation and diagrams
Structure, presentation, formatting, writing
See below item 3
Reference style
Proper referencing is required
See below item 5 & 6
Plagiarism
Copy from another student, copy from internet source/textbook, copy from other sources without proper
acknowledgement, etc
See below item 7

Marking guide:

Task A - total 25 points. Pass mark is 12 points.

No
Categories
Description
Marks
1
Conforming to the template and format
No marks will be given and severe penalties (20% deduction from the final marking) will apply for any breach
of the format and template. Fonts, sizes, spacing, captions, headings etc. will also be checked thoroughly. Be
thorough and follow 100% when using the template and format instruction to avoid penalties.
3
2
Figures and tables created
They should be created yourself and not copied from elsewhere. For full marks you should create at least 2
figures and 2 tables.
4
3
Main sections
Main body structures and quality including word limit.
9
4
Literature review
Severe penalties apply for simple listing and describing. It should be a logically support analysis that reaches
the review conclusion that should be included at the end of the section. Check word limit.
5
5
In body citation
Strictly follow the order and instruction by IEEE. Check when/where to put the citation. See attached files and
search the internet for guidelines
2
6
References section
Check whether they follow the instruction. Otherwise, no marks will be provided
2
7
Penalties
• If the TurnItin rate is 20% or more, the MIT Plagiarism policy will apply. Students
cannot see the TurnItin result when they submit, thus they must learn how to paraphrase if needed. Do
not cut and paste. The best way is to rewrite your idea and create meaningful paragraphs.
• Penalties apply for breach of instructions, e.g. word limits and number of references
etc.
Total 25

Task B - total 5 points.

See the instruction attached to prepare presentation.

Marking Rubric for Assignment 1 Questions-Marks as shown

Grade

Mark

HD

80%+

70%-79%

CR

60%-69%

50%-59%

Fail

< 50%

Excellent

Very Good

Good

Satisfactory

Unsatisfactory

Identification and Analysis and description

Highly valid and appropriate

Valid and appropriate

Generally valid and appropriate

Valid but no appropriate

Not valid and not appropriate

Explanation/

justification

All elements are present and well integrated.

Components present with good cohesion

Components present and mostly well integrated

Most components present

Lacks structure.

Reference style

Clear styles with excellent source of references.

Clear referencing/ style

Generally good referencing/style

Unclear referencing/style

Lacks consistency with many errors

Presentation and diagrams

Proper writing and drawing. Professionally presented

Properly written and drawing, with some minor deficiencies

Mostly good, but some structure or presentation problems

Acceptable presentation

Poor structure, careless presentation