I am an undergraduate Computer Science student and was hoping to gain some knowledge of ways to help prevent IP spoofing but all the resources I have tried out elaborate this concept in a theoretical way. I want to try out my hands at one of the techniques like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_knocking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYN_cookies

How do I simulate this whole situation in my own system were I myself am the attacker and I myself have to defend it? And once I have gained an understanding of it, then how do I start translating that into programming terms?