Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity


Raven Alder - 2005
    Now, the criminal hackers readers have grown to both love and hate try to cover their tracks and vanish into thin air... Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity is the 3rd book in the Stealing series, and continues in the tradition created by its predecessors by delivering real-world network attack methodologies and hacking techniques within a context of unique and original fictional accounts created by some of the world's leading security professionals and computer technologists. The seminal works in TechnoFiction, this STN collection yet again breaks new ground by casting light upon the mechanics and methods used by those lurking on the darker side of the Internet, engaging in the fastest growing crime in the world: Identity theft.Cast upon a backdrop of Evasion, surviving characters from How to Own a Continent find themselves on the run, fleeing from both authority and adversary, now using their technical prowess in a way they never expected--to survive.

Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data


Charles Wheelan - 2012
    How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life.

UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook


Evi Nemeth - 2010
    This is one of those cases. The UNIX System Administration Handbook is one of the few books we ever measured ourselves against." -From the Foreword by Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media "This book is fun and functional as a desktop reference. If you use UNIX and Linux systems, you need this book in your short-reach library. It covers a bit of the systems' history but doesn't bloviate. It's just straightfoward information delivered in colorful and memorable fashion." -Jason A. Nunnelley"This is a comprehensive guide to the care and feeding of UNIX and Linux systems. The authors present the facts along with seasoned advice and real-world examples. Their perspective on the variations among systems is valuable for anyone who runs a heterogeneous computing facility." -Pat Parseghian The twentieth anniversary edition of the world's best-selling UNIX system administration book has been made even better by adding coverage of the leading Linux distributions: Ubuntu, openSUSE, and RHEL. This book approaches system administration in a practical way and is an invaluable reference for both new administrators and experienced professionals. It details best practices for every facet of system administration, including storage management, network design and administration, email, web hosting, scripting, software configuration management, performance analysis, Windows interoperability, virtualization, DNS, security, management of IT service organizations, and much more. UNIX(R) and Linux(R) System Administration Handbook, Fourth Edition, reflects the current versions of these operating systems: Ubuntu(R) LinuxopenSUSE(R) LinuxRed Hat(R) Enterprise Linux(R)Oracle America(R) Solaris(TM) (formerly Sun Solaris)HP HP-UX(R)IBM AIX(R)

Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change (The XP Series)


Kent Beck - 1999
    If you are seriously interested in understanding how you and your team can start down the path of improvement with XP, you must read this book."-- Francesco Cirillo, Chief Executive Officer, XPLabs S.R.L. "The first edition of this book told us what XP was--it changed the way many of us think about software development. This second edition takes it farther and gives us a lot more of the 'why' of XP, the motivations and the principles behind the practices. This is great stuff. Armed with the 'what' and the 'why, ' we can now all set out to confidently work on the 'how' how to run our projects better, and how to get agile techniques adopted in our organizations."-- Dave Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmers LLC "This book is dynamite! It was revolutionary when it first appeared a few years ago, and this new edition is equally profound. For those who insist on cookbook checklists, there's an excellent chapter on 'primary practices, ' but I urge you to begin by truly contemplating the meaning of the opening sentence in the first chapter of Kent Beck's book: 'XP is about social change.' You should do whatever it takes to ensure that every IT professional and every IT manager--all the way up to the CIO--has a copy of Extreme Programming Explained on his or her desk."-- Ed Yourdon, author and consultant "XP is a powerful set of concepts for simplifying the process of software design, development, and testing. It is about minimalism and incrementalism, which are especially useful principles when tackling complex problems that require a balance of creativity and discipline."-- Michael A. Cusumano, Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of The Business of Software " Extreme Programming Explained is the work of a talented and passionate craftsman. Kent Beck has brought together a compelling collection of ideas about programming and management that deserves your full attention. My only beef is that our profession has gotten to a point where such common-sense ideas are labeled 'extreme.'..."-- Lou Mazzucchelli, Fellow, Cutter Business Technology Council "If your organization is ready for a change in the way it develops software, there's the slow incremental approach, fixing things one by one, or the fast track, jumping feet first into Extreme Programming. Do not be frightened by the name, it is not that extreme at all. It is mostly good old recipes and common sense, nicely integrated together, getting rid of all the fat that has accumulated over the years."-- Philippe Kruchten, UBC, Vancouver, British Columbia "Sometimes revolutionaries get left behind as the movement they started takes on a life of its own. In this book, Kent Beck shows that he remains ahead of the curve, leading XP to its next level. Incorporating five years of feedback, this book takes a fresh look at what it takes to develop better software in less time and for less money. There are no silver bullets here, just a set of practical principles that, when used wisely, can lead to dramatic improvements in software development productivity."-- Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit "Kent Beck has revised his classic book based on five more years of applying and teaching XP. He shows how the path to XP is both

Data Science for Business: What you need to know about data mining and data-analytic thinking


Foster Provost - 2013
    This guide also helps you understand the many data-mining techniques in use today.Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also discover how to think data-analytically, and fully appreciate how data science methods can support business decision-making.Understand how data science fits in your organization—and how you can use it for competitive advantageTreat data as a business asset that requires careful investment if you’re to gain real valueApproach business problems data-analytically, using the data-mining process to gather good data in the most appropriate wayLearn general concepts for actually extracting knowledge from dataApply data science principles when interviewing data science job candidates

The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier


Bruce Sterling - 1992
    A journalist investigates the past, present, and future of computer crimes, as he attends a hacker convention, documents the extent of the computer crimes, and presents intriguing facts about hackers and their misdoings.

Think Stats


Allen B. Downey - 2011
    This concise introduction shows you how to perform statistical analysis computationally, rather than mathematically, with programs written in Python.You'll work with a case study throughout the book to help you learn the entire data analysis process—from collecting data and generating statistics to identifying patterns and testing hypotheses. Along the way, you'll become familiar with distributions, the rules of probability, visualization, and many other tools and concepts.Develop your understanding of probability and statistics by writing and testing codeRun experiments to test statistical behavior, such as generating samples from several distributionsUse simulations to understand concepts that are hard to grasp mathematicallyLearn topics not usually covered in an introductory course, such as Bayesian estimationImport data from almost any source using Python, rather than be limited to data that has been cleaned and formatted for statistics toolsUse statistical inference to answer questions about real-world data

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future


Kevin Kelly - 2016
    In this fascinating, provocative new book, Kevin Kelly provides an optimistic road map for the future, showing how the coming changes in our lives—from virtual reality in the home to an on-demand economy to artificial intelligence embedded in everything we manufacture—can be understood as the result of a few long-term, accelerating forces. Kelly both describes these deep trends—flowing, screening, accessing, sharing, filtering, remixing, tracking, and questioning—and demonstrates how they overlap and are codependent on one another. These larger forces will completely revolutionize the way we buy, work, learn, and communicate with each other. By understanding and embracing them, says Kelly, it will be easier for us to remain on top of the coming wave of changes and to arrange our day-to-day relationships with technology in ways that bring forth maximum benefits. Kelly’s bright, hopeful book will be indispensable to anyone who seeks guidance on where their business, industry, or life is heading—what to invent, where to work, in what to invest, how to better reach customers, and what to begin to put into place—as this new world emerges.

Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart


Ian Ayres - 2007
    In this lively and groundbreaking new book, economist Ian Ayres shows how today's best and brightest organizations are analyzing massive databases at lightening speed to provide greater insights into human behavior. They are the Super Crunchers. From internet sites like Google and Amazon that know your tastes better than you do, to a physician's diagnosis and your child's education, to boardrooms and government agencies, this new breed of decision makers are calling the shots. And they are delivering staggeringly accurate results. How can a football coach evaluate a player without ever seeing him play? Want to know whether the price of an airline ticket will go up or down before you buy? How can a formula outpredict wine experts in determining the best vintages? Super crunchers have the answers. In this brave new world of equation versus expertise, Ayres shows us the benefits and risks, who loses and who wins, and how super crunching can be used to help, not manipulate us.Gone are the days of solely relying on intuition to make decisions. No businessperson, consumer, or student who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Super Crunchers.

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager


Michael Lopp - 2007
    Drawing on Lopp's management experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland, this book is full of stories based on companies in the Silicon Valley where people have been known to yell at each other. It is a place full of dysfunctional bright people who are in an incredible hurry to find the next big thing so they can strike it rich and then do it all over again. Among these people are managers, a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account.Whether you're an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you.

The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data


David Spiegelhalter - 2019
      Statistics are everywhere, as integral to science as they are to business, and in the popular media hundreds of times a day. In this age of big data, a basic grasp of statistical literacy is more important than ever if we want to separate the fact from the fiction, the ostentatious embellishments from the raw evidence -- and even more so if we hope to participate in the future, rather than being simple bystanders. In The Art of Statistics, world-renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter shows readers how to derive knowledge from raw data by focusing on the concepts and connections behind the math. Drawing on real world examples to introduce complex issues, he shows us how statistics can help us determine the luckiest passenger on the Titanic, whether a notorious serial killer could have been caught earlier, and if screening for ovarian cancer is beneficial. The Art of Statistics not only shows us how mathematicians have used statistical science to solve these problems -- it teaches us how we too can think like statisticians. We learn how to clarify our questions, assumptions, and expectations when approaching a problem, and -- perhaps even more importantly -- we learn how to responsibly interpret the answers we receive. Combining the incomparable insight of an expert with the playful enthusiasm of an aficionado, The Art of Statistics is the definitive guide to stats that every modern person needs.

Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions


Gerd Gigerenzer - 2013
    But as risk expert Gerd Gigerenzer shows, the surprising truth is that in the real world, we often get better results by using simple rules and considering less information. In Risk Savvy, Gigerenzer reveals that most of us, including doctors, lawyers, financial advisers, and elected officials, misunderstand statistics much more often than we think, leaving us not only misinformed, but vulnerable to exploitation. Yet there is hope. Anyone can learn to make better decisions for their health, finances, family, and business without needing to consult an expert or a super computer, and Gigerenzer shows us how.Risk Savvy is an insightful and easy-to-understand remedy to our collective information overload and an essential guide to making smart, confident decisions in the face of uncertainty.

@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex


Shane Harris - 2014
    In fact, as @WAR shows, U.S. hackers were crucial to our victory in Iraq. Shane Harris delves into the frontlines of America’s new cyber war. As recent revelations have shown, government agencies are joining with tech giants like Google and Facebook to collect vast amounts of information. The military has also formed a new alliance with tech and finance companies to patrol cyberspace, and Harris offers a deeper glimpse into this partnership than we have ever seen before. Finally, Harris explains what the new cybersecurity regime means for all of us, who spend our daily lives bound to the Internet — and are vulnerable to its dangers.

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers


Andy Greenberg - 2019
    Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes became ever more brazen, eventually leading to the first-ever blackouts triggered by hackers. They culminated in the summer of 2017 when malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, compromising, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. NotPetya spread around the world, inflicting an unprecedented ten billions of dollars in damage--the largest, most penetrating cyberattack the world had ever seen.The hackers behind these attacks are quickly gaining a reputation as the most dangerous team of cyberwarriors in the internet's history: Sandworm. Believed to be working in the service of Russia's military intelligence agency, they represent a persistent, highly skilled, state-sponsored hacking force, one whose talents are matched by their willingness to launch broad, unrestrained attacks on the most critical infrastructure of their adversaries. They target government and private sector, military and civilians alike.From WIRED senior writer Andy Greenberg comes Sandworm, the true story of the desperate hunt to identify and track those attackers. It considers the danger this force poses to our national stability and security. And as the Kremlin's role in manipulating foreign governments and sparking chaos globally comes into greater focus, Sandworm reveals the realities not just of Russia's global digital offensive, but of an era where warfare ceases to be waged on the battlefield--where the line between digital and physical conflict begins to blur, with world-shaking implications.

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."