Crumbs
Rich T finds some tasty titbits you might have missed in the week's news
Wednesday 24 October 2007, 5:29 PM
RSA: Cryptography for bookworms
It hasn't been the busiest tech exhibition of the year by a long way, but one stand which has provoked a bit of interest at the RSA Security conference is the bookstand.
Publisher Wiley has been on the warpath with a hefty array of security books. Topping the list of interest today, it says, is cryptography.
Chey Cobb's Cryptography for Dummies is one of the latest in the ever-popular Dummies series, and it's been one of the most sought after books at Wiley's stand.
Likewise Cryptology unlocked, a translated version of Reinhard Wobst's text, has also been one of the favourites.
Some of the more cynical books are also doing good business. Renowned security pundit Bruce Schneier has already sold 150,000 copies of Secrets and Lies - Digital Security in a Networking World, which promises to update readers on security after 9/11. In the book Schneier says you can't promise security, but you can at least try to improve it.
The Network Security bible by Eric cole, Ronald Krutz and James Conley has also attracted attention today, with its promise to be the A-Z of network security. It's actually not strictly an A-Z, but if you want to know your stream ciphers from your block ciphers, or the differing types of IPS, this book may be for you.
Software bugs are the thrust of a weighty tome: The Shellcoder's Handbook, by Chris Anley, John Heasman, Felix Linder and Gerardo Richarte. "Become familiar with security holes in Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X and Cisco IOS," boasts the backpage propaganda, as well as promising to make readers aware of weaknesses in their own systems and training them in assessing the quality of security products.
Ex-National Security Agency analyst Ira Winkler has a more worrying perspective. "Spies Among Us: How to stop spies, terrorists, hackers and criminals you don't even know you encounter every day", looks ready to set the pulse racing.
And who could turn their back on a book focusing on that most topical subject: mobile security. Daniel Hoffman claims to reveal a range of threats to the corporate BlackBerry, and any other PDA and smartphone you care to mention.
Security professionals will have plenty of food for thought tonight.
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