Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Computers

CPU Fundamentals and Timing

Clock Cycles and Frequency

A clock that oscillates 1 million times per second (1 MHz) produces a clock cycle of 1 microsecond (1 μs), which equals 10^-6 seconds per cycle.

Instruction Execution Pipeline

The steps for executing a machine instruction are:

1. Fetch the instruction.
2. Decode the instruction.
3. Fetch the operand (if any).
4. Execute the instruction.
5. Store the result or output.

Cache Memory Operations

Cache memory is a small, fast memory used to temporarily store frequently accessed data or instructions to speed up CPU operations.

• A cache hit occurs when the CPU finds the required data in cache memory.
• A cache miss occurs when the data is not found and must be fetched from main memory.

Assembly Language Basics

General-Purpose

Inserting the First Element into a Tree Structure

Method to add the first element (root) to a Tree Structure:

public void insertFirstNode(Object item)
{
    // If the tree is empty, the new node becomes the root of the tree
    if (theRoot == null)
    {
        Node theNewNode = new Node(item);
        theRoot = theNewNode;
    }
}

Deleting an Element from a Linked List

Method to remove an element at a specific index in a Linked List:

public void remove(int index) {
    // Special case: removing at the head of the list
    if (index == 1) {
        head = head.getNext();
    } else {
        // Find the previous and current node
        setCurrent(index);
        prev.setNext(curr.getNext());
    }
    size = size - 1;
}

Steps for Inserting an Element

🔎 Threat Actors & Their Attack Paths

Who is attacking?

Threat Actors are the people or groups launching attacks. Mnemonic: “NO HIS” (Nation-State, Organized Crime, Hacktivists, Insiders, Script Kiddies).

How do threats reach systems?

Threat Vectors are the attack paths used by threat actors. Mnemonic: “MFWDVN” (Messages, Files, Websites, Devices, Vendors, Networks).

Basic Protocol Filters

Use these filters to quickly isolate traffic based on common protocols:

• arp (Address Resolution Protocol)
• dns (Domain Name System)
• http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
• https (HTTP Secure)
• icmp (Internet Control Message Protocol)
• ip (Internet Protocol)
• ipv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6)
• ntp (Network Time Protocol)
• smtp (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
• ftp (File Transfer Protocol)
• ssh (Secure Shell)
• tls (Transport Layer Security)
• udp (User Datagram Protocol)
• tcp (Transmission Control Protocol)
• dhcp (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
• bootp (Bootstrap Protocol)
• radius (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service)
• snmp (Simple Network Management Protocol)
• kerberos
• smb (Server Message Block)
• nbns (NetBIOS Name Service)
• nbss (NetBIOS Session Service)

P1: Python String Manipulation Techniques

Demonstrating String Operations

s = "hello"
print(s.capitalize())
print(s.upper())
print(s.rjust(100))
print(s.center(100))
print(s.replace('l','(M)'))
print(s)
print("don't")

Indexing

a = 'symbiosis2024'
print(a[2])

Negative Indexing

print(a[-1])
print(a[-6])

Slicing

print(a[9:12])
print(a[9:])
print(a[9:-1])
print(a[:8])
print(a[-12:-1])

Stride [start index:end index:step size]

print(a[0:13:2])
print(a[0::2])

Concatenation

b = 'hello'
c = 'world'
d = b + c
print(d)
e = b + " " + c
print(e)

Repetition

f = a * 3
print(f)
g = "2024"
print(g * 2)
print(a + '2')

Reversing a String

print(a[::-1])

Split

h = "sspu"
print(h.split()) # Returns a list
i = "05/08/2024"
print(i.split("/"))
j = "14:20:25"
print(j.split("

Nmap Options

-PE: Quickly check if host is up.

-sn: Disable port scanning (host discovery).

-n: Disables DNS resolution (checks IP online without looking up hostnames).

-O: OS detection.

-A: OS detection, Version detection, Script scanning, traceroute.

-sV: Service detection (banner info, version).

-vV: Provides verbose output.

-sC: Scan with default scripts for additional info gathering.

--min-rate=5000: Ensures scan sends at least 5k packets per second.

nmap --script smb-enum-shares.nse -p 445 (ip): List shares and their properties.

To see scripts starting with X: ls /path/X

To execute script with script tracing: sudo nmap -script=smb-os-discovery -script-trace target_ip

To enumerate the SMB share files: sudo nmap -script=smb-enum-shares target_ip

Vulnerability... Continue reading "Nmap, Netcat, and Metasploit Commands Cheat Sheet" »

🧾 Data Transfer Instructions

These instructions are used to move data between registers, memory, and I/O ports.

➕ Arithmetic Instructions

These instructions perform basic mathematical operations.

Steps for Training a Machine Learning Project in the Cloud

Definition: Cloud ML Project Training

Training an ML Project in the Cloud means utilizing cloud-based resources and services to build, train, and optimize a Machine Learning model.

The Seven Key Steps in Cloud ML Training

1. Data Collection: Gather and upload the dataset to cloud storage.
2. Data Preprocessing: Clean and prepare data using cloud notebooks or specialized processing services.
3. Model Selection: Choose the appropriate algorithm or utilize a pre-built model architecture.
4. Training: Use scalable cloud compute resources (GPUs/TPUs) for intensive model training.
5. Evaluation: Test model accuracy and performance using validation data.
6. Hyperparameter Tuning: Optimize model parameters for better