Rating: 
Summary: Recommended reading for distributed system programmers
Review: This book has one of the most comprehensible explanations of network authentication protocols (including Kerberos V) that I've seen. The authors demonstrate intimate knowledge of the subject material, but they restrain themselves from simply performing a brain dump on the reader. Rather they include historical and personal footnotes that make the story witty and memorable, and give context to the topic at hand. Definitely add this book to your collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Half-decent book in Network Security
Review: This book is half decent, but it assumes the reader knows a little more than a novice with a good backround in networking would know. The book gives good diagrams and descriptions for some algorithms but not all.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent, but detailed, introduction to crypto and security
Review: This book should appeal to both the beginner and the professional in network security. The book starts with very few assumptions about the existing security knowledge of the reader yet still manages to explain, in considerable depth, encryption and security protocols.Best of all, it's extremely well written, well illustrated and peppered with some good humour. A topic like this could be tedious to read, but this book isn't (although I have to admit, the chapter on Kerberos didn't quite spark me up the way the rest of it did!). The book has some excellent mathematical background for those who want to understand public key cryptography but aren't that familiar with modular exponentiation and the like. It also has detailed descriptions of a number of algorithms. In summary, an excellent all-rounder on this extremely important topic.
Rating:
Summary: The best book currently available on network security
Review: Who would have thought that a detailed technical book on network security would be fun to read? I wouldn't have, but this one is highly technical and also lots of fun to read. As the fundamental tenet of cryptography, instead of some abstract mathematical theorem about something or other being NP complete we get "If lots of smart people have failed to solve a problem, then it probably won't be solved (soon)". But don't get me wrong, this is not a content-free book for top management, it is highly technical, with long chapters on secret-key cryptography, hashes and message digests, public-key cryptography, number theory, authentication and much more. Unlike Bruce Schneier's book, Applied Cryptography, which is more like an encylopedia than a book, this one is enjoyable to read while still carefully explaining state-of-the-art cryptographic protocols--not an easy feat to pull off. For anyone with a university degree in engineering, the sciences, or mathematics who wants to learn a lot about network security and be entertained while doing so, this book can't be beat.
Rating:
Summary: A witty and authoritative introduction to network security
Review: Who would have thought that a detailed technical book on network security would be fun to read? I wouldn't have, but this one is highly technical and also lots of fun to read. As the fundamental tenet of cryptography, instead of some abstract mathematical theorem about something or other being NP complete we get "If lots of smart people have failed to solve a problem, then it probably won't be solved (soon)". But don't get me wrong, this is not a content-free book for top management, it is highly technical, with long chapters on secret-key cryptography, hashes and message digests, public-key cryptography, number theory, authentication and much more. Unlike Bruce Schneier's book, Applied Cryptography, which is more like an encylopedia than a book, this one is enjoyable to read while still carefully explaining state-of-the-art cryptographic protocols--not an easy feat to pull off. For anyone with a university degree in engineering, the sciences, or mathematics who wants to learn a lot about network security and be entertained while doing so, this book can't be beat.
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