Rating: 
Summary: Don't Waste Your Money
Review: The text is interesting and informative. The text is short and sweet. There are examples, which is nice. That is as good as it gets.
Much of the text is based on Canned Heat, a test environment which the author claims works of Windows 2000. This claim appears to be bogus. I have verified that the software does not work on several perfectly healthy Windows 2000 workstations. The software does appear to work on Windows XP.
The problem is that so much of the text is based on Canned Heat, so if you can't get this to work, much of the text is not that useful. The text begins to sound like a marketing brochure for Canned Heat.
If you go to the website, you may be dissappointed (as I was) to never receive a response. Every form I tried returned an error message. I have verified this with other interested parties. Emails to the addresses provided have not been answered.
My best advice is to avoid "How to Break Software" and "How to Break Software Security." For what little you get, the books are overpriced.
If the author wants his readers to take him seriously as an authority on software testing, then he should spend more time testing his own software before shipping it out. Frankly, I find it hard to take him seriously if this is the best he can do.
Rating: 
Summary: Useful tests, but miss-leading title
Review: This book is not a practical guide to testing software. It is a book about a few techniques, often overlooked, for breaking software. The tests covered are very good, but are only an extremely limited set of tests.
If you need to test software on a Windows platform, then these tests and accompanying program on the CD are probably worth the price of the book. It is a very short, easy read and is useful for any experience level. Just realize you need a lot more than this for even the most rudimentary software testing.
Rating: 
Summary: If you really want to learn testing, buy this book.
Review: This book is part of the new wave of testing books that challenge not only the conventional wisdom about test process, but also challenge conventional wisdom about how to teach and write about testing. People who prefer testing textbooks that preach paperwork and process will be shocked, shocked, to discover that there are a lot of us who think it's a tester's job to find important bugs fast. We want books that give us strategies for actually finding problems. Paperwork and process help some, but not enough. We need something more. We need test-designer-sits-down-at-the-keyboard know-how.As a test designer, myself (and a competitor of Whittaker's) I can certainly find things to nitpick about this book. But I won't do that here, because the big picture is far more important. That picture is simply this: if you are confused about what to do to uncover problems in software before it ships, EVEN IF you have no specifications to test from and EVEN IF no one listens when you rant about "quality assurance processes" they should follow, then there are only a few testing books yet published that will help you. This is one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Another Rationalization for Flailing (Hack Testing)
Review: This book is unfortunately another example of the "flailing away" school of testing. This approach takes testers down the parlous path of defining requirements themselves without regard for what the system is supposed to do. The book is basically a rationalization for lack of planning, lousy requirements updating, and an endorsement for undisplined and unstructured software development. If you want to build and test the Microsoft way, this book is for you. If you want reliable systems, however, choose one of the better books on the subject. By the way, why do publishers publish dribble such as this?
Rating:
Summary: Testing Techniques based on Empirical Research
Review: This slim volume presents a series of testing techniques, dubbed
"attacks", that target common software errors. The list is based on an
empirical analysis of a large number of bugs found in commercial
software by the software testing labs at the Florida Institute of
Technology. Each attack is illustrated with an actual bug found in
everyday software. The analysis and the examples are mostly drawn from
Microsoft software.
Rating:
Summary: Solid, hard-core testing book. Pleasant and easy to read
Review: This testing book is NOT just about targeting boundary conditions, although I can see how people with no insight can perceive it as such... Testing is about knowing the environment; knowing the system. This book as opposed to most of the software testing books out there, focuses on this model. Usually to achieve this goal, a writer would need over 500 pages, yet Whittaker does it in 200 and most important in a fast and hands-on fashion. This book is a perfect introduction to any software tester. Its a jump start to better code coverage. Whittaker doesn't go deep into subjects; he just gives you enough info so that you can go and explore by yourself. I've successfully applied these techniques for both Windows and Unix systems. This book is great to understand software: both the OS and user applications. What more can you ask for 200 pages? 5/5 because of such good content in such little space.
Rating:
Summary: Solid, hard-core testing book. Pleasant and easy to read
Review: This testing book is NOT just about targeting boundary conditions, although I can see how people with no insight can perceive it as such... Testing is about knowing the environment; knowing the system. This book as opposed to most of the software testing books out there, focuses on this model. Usually to achieve this goal, a writer would need over 500 pages, yet Whittaker does it in 200 and most important in a fast and hands-on fashion. This book is a perfect introduction to any software tester. Its a jump start to better code coverage. Whittaker doesn't go deep into subjects; he just gives you enough info so that you can go and explore by yourself. I've successfully applied these techniques for both Windows and Unix systems. This book is great to understand software: both the OS and user applications. What more can you ask for 200 pages? 5/5 because of such good content in such little space.
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