One Review, One Pre-Review

Amazon.com just published my four-star review of Exploiting Software. From the review:

I read Exploiting Software (ES) last year but realized I hadn't reviewed it yet. Having read other books by these authors, like McGraw's Software Security and Hoglund's Rootkits, I realized ES was not as good as those newer books. At the time ES was published (2004) it continued to define the software exploitation genre begun in Building Secure Software. However, I don't think it's necessary to pay close attention to ES when newer books by McGraw and Hoglund are now available.

I'm looking forward to reading Network Warrior by Gary A. Donahue. This book has the second-best subtitle of all of the technical books on my shelves:

Everything you need to know that wasn't on the CCNA exam

I quickly skimmed this book at USENIX and I think it will be valuable. I like books that take nontraditional look at networking issues.

If you're wondering what my favorite subtitle is, it appears in the nearly ten-year-old book The Next World War by James Adams, original founder of iDefense. The book makes silly mistakes (discussing the "Iraqi printer virus") but it was cool to see it talk about the AFCERT and name one of our lieutenants (who was there before I arrived). It was published in 1998 (not 2001 as indicated at Amazon.com) with the subtitle:

Computers are the Weapons and the Front Line Is Everywhere

That is still true today.

Comments

Unknown said…
I guess the question is then what is the first-best subtitle in your collection?

Nick
6:26 PM
Richard Bejtlich said…
Nick, please re-read the last paragraph.
8:19 PM
dre said…
"Network Warrior" was ok. I wasn't expecting much, and it did have a good deal of excellent material.

The author's (Gary A. Donahue) complete lack of mentioning RHI (Route Health Injection) was sort of disappointing. I wish he also included non-Cisco stuff such as Juniper, Extreme, Foundry, Force10, and Alcatel (Timetra especially).

You'd be better off purchasing "Cisco Router Firewall Security", "CCSP Flash Cards and Exam Practice Pack", "CCNP BCMSN Portable Command Guide", "Cisco Express Forwarding", "Cisco LAN Switching", and my personal favorite, "Designing Content Switching Solutions". Of course, those are more expensive. It would also take some time to read all of that.

I also find it very sad that nothing has changed in Cisco-land in about 6 years. I know the SUP32-PISA is neat, but what real innovations have they had?

I could have written this book in 2001 and it would have been more up-to-date with advanced networking technologies. If NAC is the best Cisco can do, well then I predict that they will be replaced by more forwarding-thinking people such as Kramer's Palo Alto Networks, Trusteer, Imperva, et al.

Give me one Cisco product, and I'll give you a list of stuff that is better, cheaper, and faster than it. And security? Cisco and Apple have a lot in common: they both don't test their code or products before they ship them (or after they ship them. Or ever). If they want beauty and brand, then they should concentrate on the insides of their products and not just the outsides. Quality of product, please - not just a big fat logo.
6:30 PM
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