Re: 'World's No. 1 hacker' tome rocks security world

["Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" <rMslade () shaw ca>]

Date sent:              Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:50:46 +0300 (EEST)
From:                   Juha-Matti Laurio <juha-matti.laurio () netti fi>

> Summer time reading:
>
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/22/worlds_no_1_hacker/

OK, very quick book review on a 342 page PDF.  (Available at 
http://www.bluedogdream.com/downloads/SecondEdition/NO1H_ebook.pdf if you 
want to get it yourself.)

We start out with a four page resume, then six pages of photocopied testimonial 
letters, then seven pages of photocopies of ads for his products and services, then 
some more screenshots and photocopies of other stuff (did you know he was a 
Certified Master Anti-Terrorism Specialist?)

The preface starts out with the question "What is the mission and goal of this 
“Short & Simple Guide?" and then badmouths IT managers and lists a bunch of 
attacks over the years.  It never answers the question.

Whoever wrote the material (at least one section is a photocopy of an article by 
someone else), it is a random melange of data without any kind of structure or 
thought for a particular audience.  There is a lot of information that could be 
useful, but you can find the same info (and the same level of organization) with 
any search engine.  Some of it is good, some of it is lousy.  (It is easy for even the 
rawest beginner to linguistic forensics to see that it was written by a bunch of 
different authors: the style and structure of the chapters varies wildly.)  The 
chapter on social engineering starts out quite well.  (It feels very familiar: I think 
David Harley should have a better idea of the author than I do.)  It then dives into 
a bunch of stuff having almost nothing to do with social engineering.

Basically, it is a bunch of articles on various topics relating to (mostly network) 
security.  Since it is free, it might be useful to people starting out who want some 
initial material to work with for intrusion experiments.

(Both ligatt.com and ligattsecurity.com seem to be down right now.)

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade () vcn bc ca     slade () victoria tc ca     rslade () computercrime org
Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest
of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of
your diagrams and equations.                       - Albert Einstein
victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm blog.isc2.org/isc2_blog/slade/index.html
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/author/p1/
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