IP Spoofing, filter & Sticky Keys, BSOD, Repeater and Bridge

IP Spoofing

In computer networking, the term IP (Internet Protocol) address spoofing refers to the creation of IP packets with a forged (spoofed) source IP address with the purpose of concealing the identity of the sender or impersonating another computing system.

Filter Keys

FilterKeys is a feature of Microsoft Windows. It is an accessibility function that tells the keyboard to ignore brief or repeated keystrokes, in order to make typing easier for people with hand tremors.

Sticky Keys

StickyKeys is a feature of computer Desktop Environments. It is an accessibility feature created by Microsoft to aid users who have physical disabilities. StickyKeys allows the user to press a modifier key, such as Shift, Ctrl, Alt, or the Windows key, and have it remain active until another key is pressed. This program was introduced on Windows 95 and is also used on later versions. Bill Gates first came up with the idea. He thought it was an essential feature for Windows.
To toggle on the StickyKeys feature, the user should press the Shift key 5 times in a row given that they are on a Windows system and the feature is not disabled and to turn it off press both shift keys at the same time. When activated a pop-up screen should come, and the computer should make an internal chirp.[1]
For Windows XP, StickyKeys can be disabled in Control Panel --> Accessibility Options under the Keyboard tab by unchecking Use StickyKeys.

BSOD

The Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSoD, bluescreen, or Blue Screen of Doom) is a colloquialism used for the error screen displayed by some operating systems, most notably Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down to prevent damage.
Bluescreens on NT-based Windows systems are usually caused by poorly-written device drivers or malfunctioning hardware. In the Win9x era, incompatible DLLs or bugs in the kernel of the operating system could also cause bluescreens. They can also be caused by physical faults such as faulty memory, power supplies, overheating of computer components, or hardware running beyond its specification limits. Bluescreens have been present in all Windows-based operating systems since Windows 3.1; earlier, OS/2 suffered the Black Screen of Death, and early builds of Windows Vista displayed the Red Screen of Death after a boot loader error.
The term "Blue Screen of Death" originated during OS/2 pre-release development activities at Lattice Inc, the makers of an early Windows and OS/2 C compiler. During porting of Lattice's other tools, developers encountered the stop screen when NULL pointers were dereferenced either in application code or when unexpectedly passed into system API calls. During reviews of progress and feedback to IBM Austin, Texas, the developers described the stop screen as the Blue Screen of Death to denote the screen and the finality of the experience.

Repeater

A repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.

Bridge

A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model, and the term layer 2 switch is very often used interchangeably with bridge. Bridges are similar to repeaters or network hubs, devices that connect network segments at the physical layer; however, with bridging, traffic from one network is managed rather than simply rebroadcast to adjacent network segments. In Ethernet networks, the term "bridge" formally means a device that behaves according to the IEEE 802.1D standard—this is most often referred to as a network switch in marketing literature.
Bridges tend to be more complex than hubs or repeaters. Bridges can analyze incoming data packets to determine if the bridge is able to send the given packet to another segment of the network.
Since bridging takes place at the data link layer of the OSI model, a bridge processes the information from each frame of data it receives. In an Ethernet frame, this provides the MAC address of the frame's source and destination. Bridges use two methods to resolve the network segment that a MAC address belongs to.
• Transparent bridging – This method uses a forwarding database to send frames across network segments. The forwarding database is initially empty and entries in the database are built as the bridge receives frames. If an address entry is not found in the forwarding database, the frame is rebroadcast to all ports of the bridge, forwarding the frame to all segments except the source address. By means of these broadcast frames, the destination network will respond and a route will be created. Along with recording the network segment to which a particular frame is to be sent, bridges may also record a bandwidth metric to avoid looping when multiple paths are available. Devices that have this transparent bridging functionality are also known as adaptive bridges. They are primarily found in Ethernet networks.
• Source route bridging – With source route bridging two frame types are used in order to find the route to the destination network segment. Single-Route (SR) frames make up most of the network traffic and have set destinations, while All-Route (AR) frames are used to find routes. Bridges send AR frames by broadcasting on all network branches; each step of the followed route is registered by the bridge performing it. Each frame has a maximum hop count, which is determined to be greater than the diameter of the network graph, and is decremented by each bridge. Frames are dropped when this hop count reaches zero, to avoid indefinite looping of AR frames. The first AR frame which reaches its destination is considered to have followed the best route, and the route can be used for subsequent SR frames; the other AR frames are discarded. This method of locating a destination network can allow for indirect load balancing among multiple bridges connecting two networks. The more a bridge is loaded, the less likely it is to take part in the route finding process for a new destination as it will be slow to forward packets. A new AR packet will find a different route over a less busy path if one exists. This method is very different from transparent bridge usage, where redundant bridges will be inactivated; however, more overhead is introduced to find routes, and space is wasted to store them in frames. A switch with a faster backplane can be just as good for performance, if not for fault tolerance. They are primarily found in Token Ring networks.