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User interface language: English | Español

Date	May 2018	Marks available	3	Reference code	18M.2.SL.TZ0.7
Level	SL	Paper	2	Time zone	no time zone
Command term	Explain	Question number	7	Adapted from	N/A

Question

Home banking allows individuals to perform operations over the Internet on their own bank accounts.

Access to a bank’s home banking services requires, as a first step, identification and authentication of the user. Individuals log on the bank web site, and enter their own personal space by providing their full account number and a personal code that the bank gave them. The processing of this information takes place on the server side.

Outline the relationship between the Internet and the world wide web (WWW).

[2]

Explain why the choice of browser should not affect a customer’s ability to access their bank account details.

[4]

State two features that make HTTPS more suitable than HTTP in the context of home banking.

[2]

Explain why server-side processing is used in this case.

[3]

The 20 most recent account transactions can be displayed on screen in a webpage that uses XML. A print-out of all transactions of the past three months may be obtained by clicking an onscreen button on the webpage. The print-out is landscape oriented and shows many more columns than are displayed on the screen.

Describe how this processing takes place with reference to the use of XML and XSLT.

[3]

Markscheme

Award up to [2 max].

Award [1 max] for Internet and [1 max] for WWW.

Internet is a network of (networks of) computers that can communicate one with each other;
To exchange/access information through the WWW;

The WWW is a way to access/share/exchange information using software applications;
Using the Internet as a physical medium;

Internet allows the transmission of data;
That constitute the information that applications on the WWW may want to share/access/exchange;

The WWW provides, through hyperlinks, a level of connectivity of resources (logical connectivity);
Which can be physically sparse, but connected in a network in the Internet;

Award up to [4 max]:

Award [1] for defining the term “standards” and award [1] for a development up to [2 max];

Award [1] for defining the term “protocol(s)” and award [1] for a development up to [2 max];

Standards are applied by the browser;
For interpreting the HTML (XML);
So that the all information will appear, and also (more or less) as expected;

Protocols are used;
To build up the communication at different levels of the architecture;
All browsers will rely upon the same internet protocols (TCP/IP);
That is essential for interoperability in transmission/communication;
So that the IP address is retrieved (via the DNS server);

Award [2 max] for a generic response.

Award up to [2 max]:
HTTPS authenticates the web site;
HTTPS encrypts the data that need to be transferred;

Award up to [3 max]:
The bank needs to store all passwords in its server, including the credentials given to the users;
So that the comparison with the individual’s entry happens in the bank with the local database;
To the purpose of guaranteeing security;
And to possibly perform other operations (tracking log-ins or transactions);

The bank cannot send out password to be processed on the client’s side;
This will not be a guarantee for security for the bank/it may introduce vulnerabilities/sensitive data cannot be sent out in the public domain;
Hence the comparison with the individual’s entry must happen in the bank with the local database;

Note: Do not award marks between clusters.

Award up to [3 max]:
XML is used to create/organize the data on the internal database;
By clicking the virtual button a script is run that transforms the information on the database into the print-out form;
Stylesheet in XSLT transforms XML into an output form;
The script contains instructions on how to access the database (which fields are relevant) and how to present the information for the final form for the printer;

By clicking the virtual button a script is run;
Which uses XML to retrieve/select the required data from the internal database/server;
Which is displayed using XSLT into an appropriate output form (on the screen);
The script also contains instructions for the correct printout of data;

Note: Do not award marks between clusters.

Examiners report

[N/A]

Syllabus sections

Option C: Web science » C.1 Creating the web

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17N.2.SL.TZ0.8d:

A fragment of a script and a web form are provided below.
In the script some functions are not implemented, and only their specification is provided.

<?php
  //include a database of urls
  include('url_db.php');
  $url = $short = "";

  if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == "POST")
  { $url = $_POST['url'];
    $short = make_short($url);
    function make_short($u)
    { $x = make_alpha_string($u);
      $y = first4_last4($x);
      $z = limits($x);
      $v = $y. ".".$z;   //string concatenation
      return $v;
  }

  function make_alpha_string($u)
  { // It removes, in this order: substrings corresponding to
    // protocol names, the substring www, and all characters
    // except for letters
  }

  function first4_last4($u)
  { // It returns the string made of the first 4 characters
    // followed by the last 4 characters of $u
  }

  function limits($u)
  { // It returns the string made of the first character and
    // last character of $u
  }

  mysql_query("
    INSERT INTO url_db(orig_url, short_url, url_ip) VALUES
    ( '".$_POST['url']."',
      '".$short."',
      '".$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']."'
    )
  ");
 }
?>

<form method="post" action="">
URL:
<input type="text" name="url" />
<br><br>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

Describe the processing that occurs when the form is filled with the URL https://www.the2nd.org/bin.php?id=70 that the server discovers is associated with the IP address 172.16.254.1.

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Option C: Web science

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Markscheme

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Syllabus sections

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