reviewed by: Peter deHaan
Publisher: No Starch Press
232 pages (not including index)
ISBN: 1593270070 (published November 2003)

The topic of "hacking" is usually quite taboo in society as people usually associate it with a negative stereotype. This book serves a very specific purpose, and does it quite well. This book serves to educate on how several types of common hacking techniques work in order to educate the reader (that'd be you) on how to protect yourself. This book isn't merely some sort of "insert the CD and install Program X and click on Button Y", no sir! This book requires you to roll up your sleeves and write copious amounts of code yourself in order to see HOW the exploits work. The end result is way more powerful (and educational) then a book that merely teaches you to point and click.

In order to get the most out of this book, ideally you would have some sort of (at least minor) background in how to program in C or any other language, or at least understand basic concepts. The book does explain several core programming terms in the author's easy-to-follow writing style which is fantastic for readers who may be newer to programming or those of us who are a little rusty. The examples are also written assuming you're using a computer running some sort of Linux operating system (the author recommends Gentoo Linux).

Essentially this book is broken down in to 3 main sections: Programming, Networking and Cryptology (plus the standard Intro and Conclusion chapters). The Programming chapter takes up the bulk of the book, weighing in at roughly 132 pages (or half the book). The Networking chapter is by far the shortest component of the book at about 34 pages, and then the Cryptology chapter making up the final 56 pages. The rest of the pages are split between the introduction and conclusion.

Although the code can easily become overwhelming to novice programmers, the code is always well documented and explained so even if you don't understand what the code is doing exactly, you can easily follow the logic. You'll also gain some understanding of several different programming languages throughout the course of the book. From writing and compiling C programs, to looking at Perl and even some Assembly this book guides you through some very importing programming concepts.

The Networking section covers all the concepts taught during your classes in Computer Science or while reading through those networking textbooks. Everything from the OSI model and the 7 OSI layers (physical, data, network, transport, session, presentation and application) are covered individually and as a group before advancing into important topics such as Network Sniffing, TCP/IP Hijacking, Denial of Service attacks.

The final section on Cryptography was the one I found the most amusing. The first 12 or so pages are dedicated to theory and different types of encryption before you get into looking at different types of attacks. The next 15 pages take a good look at password cracking, with the rest of the chapter dedicated to looking at WEP encryption (for "hacking" wireless-routers).

Overall this book is excellent and teaches the fundamentals of various types of exploits that exist and what they mean and how they "work". This book should be required reading for any aspiring programmer and should probably be taught as basic computer programming fundamentals in computer schools everywhere.

This book is an invaluable resource, but at times it can get VERY deep. Some of the code examples are quite intricate (especially the Assembly language ones) and other examples are very long (several pages of code) which can be intimidating for people newer to programming. But for intermediate-expert programmers this book is a must!

Rating: (4/5).