Stealing the Network

Blaine Hilton writes "Stealing the Network is a refreshing change from more traditional computer books. The authors have created fictional stories based on non-fictional concepts that could really happen to our computer systems today. The realistic fiction approach makes the book much lighter to read and actually entertaining. I also believe this approach makes the true methods behind the fictional stores much more memorable then memorizing thousand page textbooks." Read on for his overview of the book. Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box author Ryan Russell, Tim Mullen (Thor), FX, Dan Kaminsky, Joe Grand, Ken Pfeil, Ido Dubrawsky, Mark Burnett, and Paul Craig pages 328 publisher Syngress rating 8 reviewer Blaine Hilton ISBN 1931836876 summary An interesting fictionalized approach to hacking and other aspects of information security.

I'm leery of books that are written by multiple authors because the writing style always seems to keep me off beat from jumping around, however in this book it works out well since the book is organized as a series of short stories. Each story describes somebody involved in information security -- either somebody trying to access a system, or a person trying to keep the bad guys out.

If you are looking for a step-by-step guide to locking down your computer and network, this is not the book for you. Instead, this book is more to help people who already have at least a basic understanding of information security to see from another perspective. Stealing the Network looks at other reasons why people can break in: everything from being told to go to industry conferences to not collecting access cards when an employee leaves the company. What this book left deepest in my mind is to trust nothing, and assume even less.

After the ten short stories of how hacking is really done, there is a nicely done appendix along with Ryan Russel's "Laws of Security," which finishes this fictionalized book in a very non-fictional way. The laws cover most of the problems with current IT infrastructure, but do not go in-depth with what I believe is the biggest security hole, the user. Many of the stories touch on this fact but that's about the extent of it. I believe this may be because there are not any easy solutions to human behavior. This book says it best with "people are lazy."

At 328 pages (in pretty large text), this is a great easy read, though the book would be better with a lower price tag. However if you work with or around computers and the Internet, this book is very enlightening, if not completely informative.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Contributors
• Forward
• Chapters:
  1. Hide and Sneak
  2. The Worm Turns
  3. Just Another Day at the Office
  4. h3X's Adventures in Networkland
  5. The Thief No One Saw
  6. Flying the Friendly Skies
  7. dis-card
  8. Social (In)Security
  9. BabelNet
  10. The Art of Tracking
• Appendix - The Laws of Security

Most of the book's authors have websites you can hit for more information; follow these links to find more from Ryan Russell, Tim Mullen (Thor), FX, Dan Kaminsky, Joe Grand, Ken Pfeil, Ido Dubrawsky and Mark Burnett, as well as Jeff Moss (who wrote the forward).

You can purchase Stealing the Network from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Stealing the network

[Anonymous Coward]

5 finger discounts at CompUSA!

Re:Stealing the network

[Lord_Slepnir]

For me it's a four finger discount now. Be careful of doing that in third world countries.

Re:Woo Hoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

A well earned first post. Congratulations. ;)

Re:fp!

[ryanr]

In one of the stories, a book author beats the anonymous coward for first post on his book review story.

There was this guy..

[bigattichouse]

There was this guy.. and he liked to tell stories that had meaning, because it was easy to remember the story, and the associated meaning... man, what was his name... (Insert favorite diety/boddhi here)

People inherently remember stories and songs much better than bare facts.

Question:

[mao che minh]

Yes mister Ryanr, I have a question that demands your expertise. How do I perform what is commonly refferred to as "teh haxX0r" on the internet? And is the art of "haxX0ring" related to "hacking" in any way? I am routinely laughed out of IRC chat rooms because I am not "l33t", as they put it.

Thank you.

Re:Question:

[ryanr]

They're similar, but with hax0ring, you yell "3y3 0wn j00!!!!11!!!1!" a lot, and the actual hacking part looks a lot like flying through a wireframe cityscape.

Re:Question:

[Surak]

They're similar, but with hax0ring, you yell "3y3 0wn j00!!!!11!!!1!" a lot, and the actual hacking part looks a lot like flying through a wireframe cityscape.

Phew. And here I was starting to think that the movie "Hackers" lacked actual basis in reality. At least they got *that* part right. ;)

So, exactly where is your gibson, and how do I get to h4x0ring it?

Parody time.

[cyt0plas]

I guess it's time for someone to write "Steal this Network" - a howto guide.

Computer Security Quote

[bpfinn]

Could someone remind me who stated the two laws of computer security:

1. Don't buy a computer.
2. If you do buy a computer, don't turn it on.

Thanks.

The laws of security:

[cyt0plas]

1) By the time you finish reading these laws, they will be hopelessly out of date

2) Don't use anything that Microsoft got near, even if the interaction was nothing more than an underling squinting at it over his morning coffee - It might be tainted, don't risk it.

3) The nice thing about being a security consultant is that if the customers knew enough to judge your work, they wouldn't need you in the first place.

4) "Security Consultant" is a important-sounding title that carries very little real responsibility.

5) It doesn't matter how good your security is, some manager will give out his password to his wife/kids/secretary/dog, and data _will_ be lost. Don't wait for it to happen, back up the data _now_.

Re:Are you taking this chance to whore your balls

[ryanr]

Sort of. I have no need for any more karma (in fact, I'll probably lose a good chunk on this thread :) ) but I always figured if I was ever interviewed on Slashdot, or had a book review or something, that I'd answer as many questions as I could. That's the point of an interactiv website, yes?

Fiction as technical

[genkael]

And then Bob realized he could do an nslookup on his IP. Frustration rained. They he realized that inevitably he had forgotten to put in a reverse lookup into the nameserver.

It just doesn't work for me.

Re:yes it is...

[Carbonite]

I improve my English through /.

Sweet Jesus! That's like improving your health through heroin.

Brilliant

[Mannerism]

The authors have created fictional stories based on non-fictional concepts that could really happen to our computer systems today.

Wow. This could spawn a whole genre of books. We could call it "Science Fiction".

Re:Woo Hoo!

[Anonymous Coward]

I absolutely prefer it when she swallows. My wife isn't generally willing, but your mom...

Dude.. I don't want to hear the word "wife" and "mom" in the same sentence depicting oral sex. You twisted fuck...