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Rating: 
Summary: Book gets 4 stars, format gets -5 stars.
Review: After reading most of Steve Brown's book on VPNs, I have to admit that it is well written and informative. The first few chapters are a little slow, but overall the book gives a well-rounded picture of VPN technology. However, I will forever associate this book with one of the worst shopping experiences of my life. Buying an e-book is the worst possible thing you could ever do. The text is poorly rendered, making your eyes tire more quickly. The highlight and annotation features are clumsily implemented, and generally useless. Then, to top off all of the smaller, forgivable faults, is the supposed copyright protection. In order to protect the book's copyright, a very valid concern, the writers of Adobe's e-book reader, decided to make the books a one-shot, one computer deal. Sure you can read the book as many times as you would like, just as long as the computer you have now is the only computer you'll ever have for the rest of your life. I have found Amazon to be helpful when I requested permission to download the book a second time, but the fact that I had to do this is offensive. The primary focus of this book was security, something that the authors of the e-book program obviously knew nothing about. There has to be some reliable way to allow the rightful owner of the book to transfer it from one computer to another, in the same way that most software licenses allow, without critically endangering the author's intellectual property. In my opinion, a book that cost half as much as my hard drive should not be left to the mercy of that hard drive or my limited backup equipment. In short, buy this book as a REAL book if you can find it, but DON'T EVER buy an e-book. Unless, of course, you have that ever elusive PC that will never need to be replaced, restored, or updated.
Rating:
Summary: Book gets 4 stars, format gets -5 stars.
Review: After reading most of Steve Brown's book on VPNs, I have to admit that it is well written and informative. The first few chapters are a little slow, but overall the book gives a well-rounded picture of VPN technology. However, I will forever associate this book with one of the worst shopping experiences of my life. Buying an e-book is the worst possible thing you could ever do. The text is poorly rendered, making your eyes tire more quickly. The highlight and annotation features are clumsily implemented, and generally useless. Then, to top off all of the smaller, forgivable faults, is the supposed copyright protection. In order to protect the book's copyright, a very valid concern, the writers of Adobe's e-book reader, decided to make the books a one-shot, one computer deal. Sure you can read the book as many times as you would like, just as long as the computer you have now is the only computer you'll ever have for the rest of your life. I have found Amazon to be helpful when I requested permission to download the book a second time, but the fact that I had to do this is offensive. The primary focus of this book was security, something that the authors of the e-book program obviously knew nothing about. There has to be some reliable way to allow the rightful owner of the book to transfer it from one computer to another, in the same way that most software licenses allow, without critically endangering the author's intellectual property. In my opinion, a book that cost half as much as my hard drive should not be left to the mercy of that hard drive or my limited backup equipment. In short, buy this book as a REAL book if you can find it, but DON'T EVER buy an e-book. Unless, of course, you have that ever elusive PC that will never need to be replaced, restored, or updated.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed purchaser
Review: I bought the book on the strength of the review material on the Amazon site, but found it unusable. I concur with the assessment of Rob Slade, a prominent Web reviewer of communications books: "I cannot recommend this text. If you do not have a background in data and communications security, you will find this book confusing at best, and seriously misleading at worst. If you do know security, this book will make your brain hurt. It adds almost nothing to the available literature."
Rating: 
Summary: A Good Look at VPN Technologies
Review: I purchased this book about 6 months ago, and I still review it. Mr. Brown had done an excellent job of looking at VPN technology, and made a difficult concept easy to understand. Like any book, they become outdated and should be updated. I disagree completely with the last reviewer, and that of "Robert Slade", noted reviewer. If you look at all the Amazon reviews about the O'Reilly VPN book, you will see that while all the Amazon reviewer's totally dislike the book, Mr. Slade's review gives it a major endorsement. But the last review is also right in that you need a foundation, you need a good solid understanding of routing/IP addressing/DNS, etc. Without this foundation, you will not be able to understand the topics and shouldn't even try to install a VPN.
Rating: 
Summary: Long and repetitive
Review: I purchased this book about the time it came out but I never had time to read it. Recently I found VPNs crossing my path so it was time to pull it off the shelf. A few comments. First, as you read this book you get a sense that it is out of date. Not surprising given the rate at which technology progresses.
I found the book very repetitive. It seemed entire sections would repeat content from the previous sections. Perhaps I'm getting old but I just found it hard to extract information from this book easily. It seemed that it would never get right to the point and would drone on and leave you without the answers.
Rating:
Summary: Long and repetitive
Review: I purchased this book about the time it came out but I never had time to read it. Recently I found VPNs crossing my path so it was time to pull it off the shelf. A few comments. First, as you read this book you get a sense that it is out of date. Not surprising given the rate at which technology progresses.
I found the book very repetitive. It seemed entire sections would repeat content from the previous sections. Perhaps I'm getting old but I just found it hard to extract information from this book easily. It seemed that it would never get right to the point and would drone on and leave you without the answers.
Rating:
Summary: A bit dry but covers the basics VERY well
Review: You'll understand the concepts if not exactly the execution of VPNs and the various methods of implementing them. Be sure to get training specific to your product and methodology before considering this your only purchase.
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