Book picks similar to
Counter Hack Reloaded: A Step-By-Step Guide to Computer Attacks and Effective Defenses by Edward Skoudis
security
computer-science
infosec
cybersecurity
Mastering Emacs
Mickey Petersen - 2015
In the Mastering Emacs ebook you will learn the answers to all the concepts that take weeks, months or even years to truly learn, all in one place.“Emacs is such a hard editor to learn”But why is it so hard to learn? As it turns out, it's almost always the same handful of issues that everyone faces.If you have tried to learn Emacs you will have struggled with the same problems everyone faces, and few tutorials to see you through it.I have dedicated the first half of the book to explaining the essence of Emacs — and in doing so, how to overcome these issues:Memorizing Emacs’s keys: You will learn Emacs one key at a time, starting with the arrow keys. To feel productive in Emacs, it’s important you start on an equal footing — without too many new concepts and keys to memorize. Each chapter will introduce more keys and concepts so you can learn at your own pace. Discovering new modes and features: Emacs is a self-documenting editor, and I will teach you how to use the apropos, info, and describe system to discover new modes and features, or help you find things you forgot! Customizing Emacs: You don’t have to learn Emacs Lisp to alter a lot of Emacs’s functionality. Most changes you want to make are possible using Emacs’s Customize interface and I will show you how to use it efficiently. Understanding the terminology: Emacs is so old it predates almost every other editor and all modern user interfaces. I have an entire chapter dedicated to the unique terminology in Emacs; how it is different from other editors, and what that means to you.
Running Linux
Matt Welsh - 1995
This operating system now serves as corporate hubs, Web servers, academic research platforms, and program development systems. All along it's also managed to keep its original role as an enjoyable environment for personal computing, learning system administration and programming skills, and all-around hacking.This book, now in its third edition, has been widely recognized for years in the Linux community as the getting-started book people need. It goes into depth about configuration issues that often trip up users but are glossed over by other books.A complete, UNIX-compatible operating system developed by volunteers on the Internet, Linux is distributed freely in electronic form and at a low cost from many vendors. Developed first on the PC, it has been ported to many other architectures and can now support such heavy-duty features as multiprocessing, RAID, and clustering.Software packages on Linux include the Samba file server and Apache Web server; the X Window System (X11R6); TCP/IP networking (including PPP, SSH, and NFS support); popular software tools such as Emacs and TeX; a complete software development environment including C, C++, Java, Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Python; libraries, debuggers, multimedia support, scientific and database applications, and much more. Commercial applications that run on Linux range from end-user tools like word processors and spreadsheets to mission-critical software like the Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and IBM DB/2 database management systems.Running Linux has all the information you need to understand, install, and start using the Linux operating system. This includes a comprehensive installation tutorial, complete information on system maintenance, tools for document development and programming, and guidelines for network, file, printer, and Web site administration.
Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning
Christopher M. Bishop - 2006
However, these activities can be viewed as two facets of the same field, and together they have undergone substantial development over the past ten years. In particular, Bayesian methods have grown from a specialist niche to become mainstream, while graphical models have emerged as a general framework for describing and applying probabilistic models. Also, the practical applicability of Bayesian methods has been greatly enhanced through the development of a range of approximate inference algorithms such as variational Bayes and expectation propagation. Similarly, new models based on kernels have had a significant impact on both algorithms and applications. This new textbook reflects these recent developments while providing a comprehensive introduction to the fields of pattern recognition and machine learning. It is aimed at advanced undergraduates or first-year PhD students, as well as researchers and practitioners, and assumes no previous knowledge of pattern recognition or machine learning concepts. Knowledge of multivariate calculus and basic linear algebra is required, and some familiarity with probabilities would be helpful though not essential as the book includes a self-contained introduction to basic probability theory.
Mastering Bitcoin: Unlocking Digital Cryptocurrencies
Andreas M. Antonopoulos - 2014
Whether you're building the next killer app, investing in a startup, or simply curious about the technology, this practical book is essential reading.Bitcoin, the first successful decentralized digital currency, is still in its infancy and it's already spawned a multi-billion dollar global economy. This economy is open to anyone with the knowledge and passion to participate. Mastering Bitcoin provides you with the knowledge you need (passion not included).This book includes:A broad introduction to bitcoin--ideal for non-technical users, investors, and business executivesAn explanation of the technical foundations of bitcoin and cryptographic currencies for developers, engineers, and software and systems architectsDetails of the bitcoin decentralized network, peer-to-peer architecture, transaction lifecycle, and security principlesOffshoots of the bitcoin and blockchain inventions, including alternative chains, currencies, and applicationsUser stories, analogies, examples, and code snippets illustrating key technical concepts
The Visible Ops Handbook: Starting ITIL in 4 Practical Steps
Kevin Behr - 2004
Visible Ops is comprised of four prescriptive and self-fueling steps that take an organization from any starting point to a continually improving process. MAKING ITIL ACTIONABLE Although the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) provides a wealth of best practices, it lacks prescriptive guidance: What do you implement first, and how do you do it? Moreover, the ITIL books remain relatively expensive to distribute. Other information, publicly available from a variety of sources, is too general and vague to effectively aid organizations that need to start or enhance process improvement efforts. The Visible Ops booklet provides a prescriptive roadmap for organizations beginning or continuing their IT process improvement journey. WHY DO WE NEED VISIBLE OPS? The Visible Ops methodology was developed because there was not a satisfactory answer to the question: "I believe in the need for IT process improvement, but where do I start?" Since 2000, Gene Kim and Kevin Behr have met with hundreds of IT organizations and identified eight high-performing IT organizations with the highest service levels, best security, and best efficiencies. For years, they studied these high-performing organizations to figure out the secrets to their success. Visible Ops codifies how these organizations achieved their transformation from good to great, showing how interested organizations can replicate the key processes of these high-performing organizations in just four steps: 1. Stabilize Patient, Modify First Response - Almost 80% of outages are self-inflicted. The first step is to control risky changes and reduce MTTR by addressing how changes are managed and how problems are resolved. 2. Catch and Release, Find Fragile Artifacts - Often, infrastructure exists that cannot be repeatedly replicated. In this step, we inventory assets, configurations and services, to identify those with the lowest change success rates, highest MTTR and highest business downtime costs. 3. Establish Repeatable Build Library - The highest return on investment is implementing effective release management processes. This step creates repeatable builds for the most critical assets and services, to make it "cheaper to rebuild than to repair." 4. Enable Continuous Improvement - The previous steps have progressively built a closed-loop between the Release, Control and Resolution processes. This step implements metrics to allow continuous improvement of all of these process areas, to best ensure that business objectives are met.
The Dark Net: Inside the Digital Underworld
Jamie Bartlett - 2014
A world that is as creative and complex as it is dangerous and disturbing. A world that is much closer than you think.The dark net is an underworld that stretches from popular social media sites to the most secretive corners of the encrypted web. It is a world that frequently appears in newspaper headlines, but one that is little understood, and rarely explored. The Dark Net is a revelatory examination of the internet today, and of its most innovative and dangerous subcultures: trolls and pornographers, drug dealers and hackers, political extremists and computer scientists, Bitcoin programmers and self-harmers, libertarians and vigilantes.Based on extensive first-hand experience, exclusive interviews and shocking documentary evidence, The Dark Net offers a startling glimpse of human nature under the conditions of freedom and anonymity, and shines a light on an enigmatic and ever-changing world.
The Ruby Way: Solutions and Techniques in Ruby Programming
Hal Fulton - 2001
This practical "how-to" handbook, written by experienced programmer Hal Fulton, has been updated to not only explain the newest features of Ruby, but also to show how people use Ruby today, including coverage of Ruby on Rails.
Head First Design Patterns
Eric Freeman - 2004
At any given moment, somewhere in the world someone struggles with the same software design problems you have. You know you don't want to reinvent the wheel (or worse, a flat tire), so you look to Design Patterns--the lessons learned by those who've faced the same problems. With Design Patterns, you get to take advantage of the best practices and experience of others, so that you can spend your time on...something else. Something more challenging. Something more complex. Something more fun. You want to learn about the patterns that matter--why to use them, when to use them, how to use them (and when NOT to use them). But you don't just want to see how patterns look in a book, you want to know how they look "in the wild". In their native environment. In other words, in real world applications. You also want to learn how patterns are used in the Java API, and how to exploit Java's built-in pattern support in your own code. You want to learn the real OO design principles and why everything your boss told you about inheritance might be wrong (and what to do instead). You want to learn how those principles will help the next time you're up a creek without a design pattern. Most importantly, you want to learn the "secret language" of Design Patterns so that you can hold your own with your co-worker (and impress cocktail party guests) when he casually mentions his stunningly clever use of Command, Facade, Proxy, and Factory in between sips of a martini. You'll easily counter with your deep understanding of why Singleton isn't as simple as it sounds, how the Factory is so often misunderstood, or on the real relationship between Decorator, Facade and Adapter. With Head First Design Patterns, you'll avoid the embarrassment of thinking Decorator is something from the "Trading Spaces" show. Best of all, in a way that won't put you to sleep! We think your time is too important (and too short) to spend it struggling with academic texts. If you've read a Head First book, you know what to expect--a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works. Using the latest research in neurobiology, cognitive science, and learning theory, Head First Design Patterns will load patterns into your brain in a way that sticks. In a way that lets you put them to work immediately. In a way that makes you better at solving software design problems, and better at speaking the language of patterns with others on your team.
Practical UNIX & Internet Security
Simson Garfinkel - 1991
Crammed with information about host security, it saved many a UNIX system administrator and user from disaster.This second edition is a complete rewrite of the original book. It's packed with twice the pages and offers even more practical information for UNIX users and administrators. It covers features of many types of UNIX systems, including SunOS, Solaris, BSDI, AIX, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, Linux, and others. The first edition was practical, entertaining, and full of useful scripts, tips, and warnings. This edition is all those things -- and more.If you are a UNIX system administrator or user in this security-conscious age, you need this book. It's a practical guide that spells out, in readable and entertaining language, the threats, the system vulnerabilities, and the countermeasures you can adopt to protect your UNIX system, network, and Internet connection. It's complete -- covering both host and network security -- and doesn't require that you be a programmer or a UNIX guru to use it.Practical UNIX & Internet Security describes the issues, approaches, and methods for implementing security measures. It covers UNIX basics, the details of security, the ways that intruders can get into your system, and the ways you can detect them, clean up after them, and even prosecute them if they do get in. Filled with practical scripts, tricks, and warnings, Practical UNIX & Internet Security tells you everything you need to know to make your UNIX system as secure as it possible can be.Contents include:Part I: Computer Security Basics. Introduction and security policies. Part II: User Responsibilities. Users and their passwords, groups, the superuser, the UNIX filesystem, and cryptography. Part III: System Administrator Responsibilities. Backups, defending accounts, integrity checking, log files, programmed threats, physical security, and personnel security. Part IV: Network and Internet Security: telephone security, UUCP, TCP/IP networks, TCP/IP services, WWW, RPC, NIS, NIS+, Kerberos, and NFS. Part V: Advanced Topics: firewalls, wrappers, proxies, and secure programming. Part VI: Handling Security Incidents: discovering a breakin, U.S. law, and trust. VII: Appendixes. UNIX system security checklist, important files, UNIX processes, paper and electronic sources, security organizations, and table of IP services.
Access 2007: The Missing Manual
Matthew MacDonald - 2006
It runs on PCs rather than servers and is ideal for small- to mid-sized businesses and households. But Access is still intimidating to learn. It doesn't help that each new version crammed in yet another set of features; so many, in fact, that even the pros don't know where to find them all. Access 2007 breaks this pattern with some of the most dramatic changes users have seen since Office 95. Most obvious is the thoroughly redesigned user interface, with its tabbed toolbar (or "Ribbon") that makes features easy to locate and use. The features list also includes several long-awaited changes. One thing that hasn't improved is Microsoft's documentation. To learn the ins and outs of all the features in Access 2007, Microsoft merely offers online help.Access 2007: The Missing Manual was written from the ground up for this redesigned application. You will learn how to design complete databases, maintain them, search for valuable nuggets of information, and build attractive forms for quick-and-easy data entry. You'll even delve into the black art of Access programming (including macros and Visual Basic), and pick up valuable tricks and techniques to automate common tasks -- even if you've never touched a line of code before. You will also learn all about the new prebuilt databases you can customize to fit your needs, and how the new complex data feature will simplify your life. With plenty of downloadable examples, this objective and witty book will turn an Access neophyte into a true master.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
Frederick P. Brooks Jr. - 1975
With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 45 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."
The Sciences of the Artificial
Herbert A. Simon - 1969
There are updates throughout the book as well. These take into account important advances in cognitive psychology and the science of design while confirming and extending the book's basic thesis: that a physical symbol system has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action. The chapter "Economic Reality" has also been revised to reflect a change in emphasis in Simon's thinking about the respective roles of organizations and markets in economic systems."People sometimes ask me what they should read to find out about artificial intelligence. Herbert Simon's book The Sciences of the Artificial is always on the list I give them. Every page issues a challenge to conventional thinking, and the layman who digests it well will certainly understand what the field of artificial intelligence hopes to accomplish. I recommend it in the same spirit that I recommend Freud to people who ask about psychoanalysis, or Piaget to those who ask about child psychology: If you want to learn about a subject, start by reading its founding fathers." -- George A. Miller
The Algorithm Design Manual
Steven S. Skiena - 1997
Drawing heavily on the author's own real-world experiences, the book stresses design and analysis. Coverage is divided into two parts, the first being a general guide to techniques for the design and analysis of computer algorithms. The second is a reference section, which includes a catalog of the 75 most important algorithmic problems. By browsing this catalog, readers can quickly identify what the problem they have encountered is called, what is known about it, and how they should proceed if they need to solve it. This book is ideal for the working professional who uses algorithms on a daily basis and has need for a handy reference. This work can also readily be used in an upper-division course or as a student reference guide. THE ALGORITHM DESIGN MANUAL comes with a CD-ROM that contains: * a complete hypertext version of the full printed book. * the source code and URLs for all cited implementations. * over 30 hours of audio lectures on the design and analysis of algorithms are provided, all keyed to on-line lecture notes.
The Node Beginner Book
Manuel Kiessling - 2011
The aim of The Node Beginner Book is to get you started with developing applications for Node.js, teaching you everything you need to know about advanced JavaScript along the way on 59 pages.
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
Martin Fowler - 1999
Significant numbers of poorly designed programs have been created by less-experienced developers, resulting in applications that are inefficient and hard to maintain and extend. Increasingly, software system professionals are discovering just how difficult it is to work with these inherited, non-optimal applications. For several years, expert-level object programmers have employed a growing collection of techniques to improve the structural integrity and performance of such existing software programs. Referred to as refactoring, these practices have remained in the domain of experts because no attempt has been made to transcribe the lore into a form that all developers could use... until now. In Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Software, renowned object technology mentor Martin Fowler breaks new ground, demystifying these master practices and demonstrating how software practitioners can realize the significant benefits of this new process.