HIR Issue 10: Informative Resources
Books Worth Reading
<Submitted by Axon>
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2 (by Gary R. Wright & W. Richard Stevens)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN: 0-201-63354-X
Reading Level: Advanced, or able to learn quickly
Cost: Unknown. This book may be out of print. I Borrowed this book from a local library system.
Overall Rating: ### (Three Roots. Lots of info, but kind of confusing)
TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2 is a down-and-dirty look at the BSD UNIX TCP/IP stack. It covers the source code, and adds illustrations, and clearly defined explanations of how the different parts interact. After reading this book, I had a very thorough understanding of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite (Including TCP/UDP and ICMP). This book is a MUST read for anyone who is serious about programming Internetworking Tool in the C language.
After playing with *BSD, I now realize why this book is written around the BSD TCP/IP stack, as it has to be one of the most solid implementations of TCP/IP that I've ever seen. It's very rare for bugs to occur in the BSD TCP/IP Stack, unlike some other company that has recently been releasing overpriced operating systems... with *BROKEN* TCP/IP Stacks. =]
<Submitted by Axon>
The Complete FreeBSD (Revision 3, Covers FreeBSD 3.2) by Greg Lehey
Publisher: Walnut Creek CDROM
ISBN: 1-57176-246-9
Reading Level: Beginner to Veteran
Cost: About $70 US Dollars (See below)
Overall Rating: #### (4 Roots! Completely packed guide to getting started, and getting used to using UNIX every day, Lacks information about Laptop/Portable Computers)
The Complete FreeBSD Revision 3, comes with the entire 4 CD-ROM FreeBSD 3.2 set. This retails for around $50 US Dollars if you buy the Boxed set from Walnut Creek CDROM. The First CD alone is available for a lot cheaper elsewhere, but having all 4 CDROMS is a useful thing, as you don't need Internet Connectivity to install Ported software.
The Book itself is enough to get a UNIX Newbie going strong with FreeBSD, or a Veteran Linux (or other UNIX) user Comfortable with FreeBSD. As you've seen in past Articles in HiR, FreeBSD is one of the most stable and fast Server-Oriented Operating Systems out there. This book is one of the best I've seen, as far as getting going with FreeBSD. It teaches you the fundamentals of getting your UNIX server up and running, how to use it as an every-day Operating System, and how to establish Internet Connectivity Via Serial, Modem, or LAN. It also has a VERY organized and well-written guide to compiling a custom kernel for your machine, as well as entire chapters outlining Network Troubleshooting and Network Firewalling.
*** Late breaking news! ***
The cost of this book can be dramatically reduced. It seems that CompUSA has gotten ahold of it, and is selling a product called "The FreeBSD Power Pak", which contains this book, "The Complete FreeBSD", plus the Four FreeBSD 3.2 CD's, ***AND*** A Six-CD set that i386/Intel Release Snapshots, Complete CVS Tree, more than 1,500 Pre-Compiled packages, and more than 2,200 Ports (Source code that's been patched to compile on FreeBSD). The total cost at CompUSA last I checked was only $49.99. The Walnut Creek CD-ROM Catalog inside listed the same package for Almost $100! Buying each one of these items alone (The Book, The FreeBSD OS and The FreeBSD Toolkit) would total $130, so Either way, it's a good deal.
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<Submitted by Axon>
CGI Programming for the World Wide Web (Examples in Perl)
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates
ISBN:
Reading Level: Moderately Programmer Minded (Too hard for Newbies and not advanced enough for coding Gurus)
Cost:
Overall Rating: ### (Three Roots).
This book is one of the most well structured CGI Programming books I've read to date. They tell you everything you need to know to do CGI programming in a variety of languages, with some killer examples in perl.
You'll be introduced to setting up Forms in HTML, making it reference a CGI backend written in whatever language you choose. They show all their examples in perl. This isn't really a good book if you've already got a lot of programming experience. I would advise skimming it if you know how to program but don't know how CGI works yet. Total coding newbies should stay away from this book unless they have a lot of Advil, because, well... perl just doesn't make sense to someone who just learned VB.
<Submitted by Frogman>
The Ultimate Internet Terrorist: How Hackers, Geeks, and Phreaks Can Ruin Your Trip on the Information Superhighway . . . and What You Can Do To Protect Yourself
Merkle, Robert
1998 Paladin Press
ISBN 0-87364-970-2
141p
Well, not quite the U.I.T. that you get at the Blackhat meetings at DefCon, but you get an idea of how script kiddies work, and some authoritative tips on working the net to your advantage. Merkle teaches people ideas from the Hackers Manifesto, and he was a part of a hacking group, VCA, under the handle 141.187. Rather than getting into the meat of the book, I'll just say I liked it and the open, conversational tone in it.
To give you and idea of what it is about, here are some chapter titles:
Terror Mail in Cyberspace: The Anatomy of the E-Mail Address The Wonderful Art, Life, and Science of Downloading
There are other, more menacing chapters in the book, but I would still call it recommended reading for anyone who has not spent the past year or two working on learning the kinks of the net. One thing that stood out in this book though, is the last page: All hail Bob!
<Submitted by Frogman>
Atanasoff: forgotten father of the computer.
Mollenhoff, Clark R.
1988 Iowa State University Press
ISBN 0-8138-0032-3
274p
This is good for history buffs, and those who never quite believed the story of ENIAC. Mollenhoff relates the story of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer at Iowa State University, and how Mauchly visited and studied the machine, eventually turning the ideas into the ENIAC and EDVAC. It also provides transcripts from the federal investigation and case over the patents held by Sperry Rand based on the ideas Mauchly took from Atanasoff, including base 2 (binary) counting system, condenser (capacitor) memory with "jogging" or regeneration or refreshing circuits, use direct logical action for computation, and electronic instead of mechanical operation. It's kinda dry in that history book genre, but it makes a lot of history clearer that they never quite told you in Intro to Computer Science.
<Submitted by Frogman>
ANARCHY ONLINE net sex/net crime
Platt, Charles
1997 HarperPrism
ISBN unavailable
net crime 156p
net sex 211p
This is an unusual setup for a book, the two sections are back to back, each rotated 180 degrees so you can read the book from each cover to the center. Other than that it is a compendium of events and people in each of the sections, basically a modern history for the past two decades. I liked it, but thats because I like histories and the like. This one is a much more enjoyable read than the Atanasoff book.
TCP/IP: Running a Successful Network
Washburn, K. and Evans, J.T.
1993 Addison-Wesley
ISBN 0-201-62765-5
537p
I didn't finish this one, but it is basically a text book on IPv4. It covers every layer of the TCP/IP and ISO OSI models. It gets down to the bit level structure of the datagrams and explains the use of TCP and IP over many network platforms, esp. Ethernet, X.25, and Token Ring. It gets a little technical, but hey, it's a textbook. This is great if you want to know how TCP/IP as a standard works.
