Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective

Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: ...After reading "Network Security......", I found the book to be filled with extremely important bits of knowledge related to security, which one tends to overlook normally. This book is certainly a storehouse of such important aspects of security. However, I was most of all impressed with the author's ability to describe a particular attack or working from several different perspectives. The author has this uncanny ability to notice and identify several facets of the same attack. This helps the readers to better understand concepts.

The author is an excellent writer and seems to have a lot of experience in this field and has indeed churned out an AmaZING book!

Rating:
Summary: ...erhmm
Review: HAHAHA!

The only reason I am posting about this book is that I was looking around for some CCIE book prices and somehow *uhg* stumbled across this...thing (Ankit Fadia)

I swear the last three guys are him, just trying to give himself a good name. I say that only because they all have only reviewed his book. (I know I have, but I'll start reviewing more now.)

I have only read what Amazon.com has allowed me to read of his books via the "Inside This Book" feature.

THIS BOOK AND HIS LAST BOOK ARE COMPLEATE LLAMA MATERIAL! I'd recommend this book to maybe a year 8 who has very little pervious knowledge of hacking and computer security and just wants to have a read around.

FFS~ I'm serious. Even check out his over book "The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking" LOLZ!1...He wasted a good 700+ pages of paper. Maybe when he grows up he will understand the mistake he has made.


Okay I had some really good point to make but have forgot now.

Anywho DONT BUY THIS!!! heh~ Kudo's to him because he did try, and he is young. Rair enough maybe a year 8 would like this title, but no.

Quoted - "Tell a system administrator about vulnerability in his system and he will surely start respecting you. And besides thanking you, he might even give you permission to break into his system. Wow! Isn't that what all hackers dream of?"... Mate god help you if you do that. You WILL end up in all sorts of troubles. Eg, JAIL YOU FAG.

Respectively,
Ashley M.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for computer security professionals
Review: I am from Singapore and am a Chief Technical Officer of a security firm. I had attended Ankit Fadia's seminar in Kuala Lumpur in October 2002 and had ordered a book there itself. I received the book in November (the Indian edition) and have loved it. One gets to learn something new on every single page of the book. After reading the book I have even submitted a proposal for using the book for inhouse training of my employees. It is an excellent guide to hacker profiling and has been very useful for me in my job front. It acts as an excellent reference book when I am studying the log files on my clients' networks for tracing down inrusion attempts.

I strongly recommend this book to all security professionals.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Buy
Review: I have read all books written by Ankit and I must say that each time he comes out with a new book, he betters his previous writing. This new book is no exception. Network Security: A Hacker's Perspective is Ankit's best book till now. I have found a lot of useful information in this book. It is loaded with lots and lots of information on how an attacker goes about the process of fingeprinting the target network and how a system administrator can protect his network from such probing attacks.

In my opinion (and I am sure most of you will agree with me as well) this book is probably the most comprehensive book on Hacker Profiling and Scanning. I highly recommend this book to all system administratos out there who wish to get inside the minds of an attacker and know what his next move will be.

Rating:
Summary: cool
Review: I rate this book right up there with my Stevens guide. am a networking hardcore and even I got to learn something from this book. That is certainly rare. lol. Good job Fadia and well done.

Rating:
Summary: Highly Overrated
Review: I'm not sure what's up with all the great previous reviews. My guess is the writers of those reviews aren't extremely knowledgable in network security.

This book is riddled with inaccuracies, ranging from completely and absolutely wrong statements to misleading information. I never got through more than 5 pages without finding another instance of misleading or incorrect information.

The author's age - 17 years old - most definitely shows. He comes off as more of a "script kiddie" than anything. He obviously doesn't have the in-depth security, networking, and systems knowledge that a true security expert with a number of years of real world experience would have.

On the positive side, it does have some good information, but not valuable nor significant enough to make up for the amount of bad info.

I'd look elsewhere - this is definitely not a book I'd recommend.

Rating:
Summary: HIGHLY INCOMPETENT
Review: My friend showed me this book in the Teksons bookstore, it was so bad i wouldnt have bought it for free. In fact,now i think i should buy it ..as it will help me to sleep better :-)
Now i know why it is important for authors to be older ..i mean i respect age now ! The one star i am giving it is because there is no option of 0 stars in it !

Rating:
Summary: Good on hacking tactics, not so great on background
Review: This book does a better job explaining hacking techniques than it does explaining network security in general. That is, if you're interested in learning how to do some hacking, or how to protect yourself from some basic attacks, this book may be worth your while. But I wouldn't recommend it unless you have previous knowledge of, or another source for information on, the principles of network security and secure computing. You might get some wrong ideas.

In particular, the background material on how the Internet works, and on how it is managed, is spotty. For example, the author introduces and uses 'classful' IP addresses, though classless routing has been on the books for a decade. CIDR makes the interpretation of IP addresses a little more complicated than the book would lead you believe. Also from the what's-new department, the author refers to RFC 1700 as the authoritative source on port numbers, though for years (9?) an online database has been the place to find out about well-known port numbers. See RFC 3232. The section on associating geographic location with an IP number is rather optimistic. A good reviewer would have caught these and other problems.

All my gripes aside, the book has a good deal of information on specific exploits, and that is its greatest strength. The book doesn't purport to be a more than a guide to "help you step into the minds of computer criminals," but it should have been submitted to an experienced technical reviewer. A good editing & reviewing job would have helped challenge the author to make this a more valuable book.

Rating:
Summary: Good on hacking tactics, not so great on background
Review: This book does a better job explaining hacking techniques than it does explaining network security in general. That is, if you're interested in learning how to do some hacking, or how to protect yourself from some basic attacks, this book may be worth your while. But I wouldn't recommend it unless you have previous knowledge of, or another source for information on, the principles of network security and secure computing. You might get some wrong ideas.

In particular, the background material on how the Internet works, and on how it is managed, is spotty. For example, the author introduces and uses 'classful' IP addresses, though classless routing has been on the books for a decade. CIDR makes the interpretation of IP addresses a little more complicated than the book would lead you believe. Also from the what's-new department, the author refers to RFC 1700 as the authoritative source on port numbers, though for years (9?) an online database has been the place to find out about well-known port numbers. See RFC 3232. The section on associating geographic location with an IP number is rather optimistic. A good reviewer would have caught these and other problems.

All my gripes aside, the book has a good deal of information on specific exploits, and that is its greatest strength. The book doesn't purport to be a more than a guide to "help you step into the minds of computer criminals," but it should have been submitted to an experienced technical reviewer. A good editing & reviewing job would have helped challenge the author to make this a more valuable book.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for any computer security professional
Review: Whenever there is going to be a new book from ankit fadia there are a lot of expectations.Surely this book has lived upto the expectations of the readers. Morever in this book the encryption and file security part could have been elaborated. The only difficulty in reading this book is that the C code cannot be easily understood by newbies.Overall it's a fantastic job by ankit fadia and hats off to him.