I initially assumed that since tcp has a sequence number field of 32 bits and each byte sent on a tcp connection is labeled with a unique number, maximum number of bytes that can be sent on a tcp connection is about 2^32-1 or 2^32-2 (which?).
but now I feel that since TCP is a sliding window protocol, the wraparound of sequence numbers during the connection should not have an affect on the maximum number of bytes that can be sent over a tcp connection as long as the when wraparound occurs the old packet is no longer in the network (it is sent after 2*MSL).
What is the correct answer?
That there is indeed no limit on the amount of data you can transfer on a TCP connection.