Complete stages in order to unlock new challenges and earn XP.
Athens → Santa Cruz → Monterey Bay
A beginner's journey across the world. Networking is the highway system that gets you from Athens to Santa Cruz. The internet is the surf you ride when you arrive. Security hygiene is what keeps you safe on a fishing trip in Monterey Bay.
Every Journey Needs a Network
IP Addresses — The Postal Code of the Internet
How Data Gets Broken Into Packets
Routers — The Traffic Directors of the Internet
DNS — Translating Names to Addresses
MAC Addresses — The Identity Burned Into Every Device
Firewalls — What Gets In and What Stays Out
Ports — Different Doors for Different Services
Subnets — Dividing the Network Into Zones
Protocols — The Agreed Language of the Internet
HTTP vs HTTPS — Public Bulletin Boards vs Sealed Envelopes
Browsers — The Tool That Rides the Web
Clients and Servers — Who Asks, Who Answers
TLS Certificates — Proving Identity Before You Trust
Cookies and Sessions — How Websites Remember You
APIs — How Apps Talk to Each Other
Bandwidth and Throughput — How Much Can Flow at Once
Latency — The Delay Between Send and Receive
DNS Cache Poisoning — Corrupting the Internet's Address Book
Load Balancing — Distributing Traffic Across Servers
Phishing — When the Lure Looks Real
Two-Factor Authentication — Two Keys to Start the Boat
Password Strength — Why Complexity and Length Both Matter
Public WiFi — When Everyone Can Hear Your Conversation
Social Engineering — Hacking Humans, Not Computers
Software Updates — Sealing Known Holes Before They Sink You
Data Breaches — What Happens to Your Data When Companies Leak It
Safe Browsing — Spotting Dangerous URLs Before You Click
Privacy Settings — Controlling Your Digital Footprint
Incident Response — What To Do When You're Compromised