Point-to-set Maps and Mathematical Programming (Mathematical programming study)

Point-to-set Maps and Mathematical Programming (Mathematical programming study)
P. Huard | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | Elsevier Science Ltd | 198 | Mathematics

Download this book!

Free Ebooks Download

The Book of PF: A No-Nonsense Guide to the OpenBSD Firewall

The Book of PF: A No-Nonsense Guide to the OpenBSD Firewall
| 2008-01-11 00:00:00 | | 0 | Operating System

OpenBSD's stateful packet filter, PF, offers an amazing feature set and support across the major BSD platforms. Like most firewall software though, unlocking PF's full potential takes a good teacher. Peter N.M. Hansteen's PF website and conference tutorials have helped thousands of users build the networks they need using PF. The Book of PF is the product of Hansteen's knowledge and experience, teaching good practices as well as bare facts and software options. Throughout the book, Hansteen emphasizes the importance of staying in control by having a written network specification, using macros to make rule sets more readable, and performing rigid testing when loading in new rules.

Today's system administrators face increasing challenges in the quest for network quality, and The Book of PF can help by demystifying the tools of modern *BSD network defense. But, perhaps more importantly, because we know you like to tinker, The Book of PF tackles a broad range of topics that will stimulate your mind and pad your resume, including how to: Create rule sets for all kinds of network traffic, whether it is crossing a simple home LAN, hiding behind NAT, traversing DMZs, or spanning bridges Use PF to create a wireless access point, and lock it down tight with authpf and special access restrictions Maximize availability by using redirection rules for load balancing and CARP for failover Use tables for proactive defense against would-be attackers and spammers Set up queues and traffic shaping with ALTQ, so your network stays responsive Master your logs with monitoring and visualization, because you can never be too paranoid

The Book of PF is written for BSD enthusiasts and network admins at any level of expertise. With more and more services placing high demands on bandwidth and increasing hostility coming from the Internet at-large, you can never be too skilled with PF.

User review
Weak. Really weak.
This book, unfirtunately, is not much more than a mix of manuals and well-known HowTo's spread over Internet. I could as well print them to have them at hand.


Printed on thinner paper, with less intervals, it could also save some space.


Overall: the book looks bigger and smarter than it reads.

User review
Could be a little better
I was used to using IPTables in Linux, so making a transition to PF was a little of a struggle for me. This book was very helpful for getting me started, but I wish it had more examples on how to complete various situations. A couple of times I had to Google my questions to complete my firewall config.

User review
Well written, but light in much of its coverage
Hansteen has put together a mostly well written, OS-independent guide to PF. He states he `made a conscious decision early on to introduce you to its methods via interesting and useful configurations, rather than make this book the complete reference`, and I feel this book mostly accomplishes that goal. He points to the man pages as the complete reference, though I disagree on that to some extent, as they lack detailed coverage and practical usage examples in some areas.


There is no introductory coverage of any of the BSDs, which is fine for the scope of the book and those topics are already well covered elsewhere, but don't expect to pick this up and get anywhere with it if you have no prior BSD experience. You'll first need to seek resources on your BSD of choice and have a decent understanding of the OS. Basic networking knowledge is also a prerequisite.


There are some areas that are covered very minimally, to the extent that without seeking additional material, you will likely have difficulty with your implementation unless it is very basic. I agree with most of the complaints noted in Betjlich's review. Given the stated scope of the book, I'm not quite as critical. I do think the stated scope is too limited though.


This book is adequate if you want to get up and running with a basic configuration. Anything more complex will leave you seeking additional resources.


I think this is a worthwhile read if you want to setup a PF firewall, and understand the limits of a book that comes in at 134 pages excluding the appendices. The second edition could be much better though.



User review
A very accessible book on OpenBSD's PF firewall
If you're looking for information about the OpenBSD packet filter program `pf`, you may have noticed a gaping hole on bookstore shelves. Two books that I have read on pf are `Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF, 2nd Edition` by Jacek Artymiak and the No Starch Press title, `The Book of PF`, by Peter N.M. Hansteen.


`The Book of PF` is by far the easier of the two books to digest and will help you get up to speed very quickly. It's a short book, weighing in at 145 pages. The example rule sets are simple to follow and very thoroughly documented.


Hansteen helps you navigate through pf's basic configuration and then takes you through more advanced topics like wireless networks and how to deal with 'bigger or trickier networks'. There is also a treatment of OpenBSD's spamd program, designed to help you combat spam on your network.


You'll find a chapter on Alternate Queuing (ALTQ) and Common Address Redundancy Protocol (CARP). ALTQ provides a way to shape the traffic on your network and was integrated into pf for the OpenBSD 3.3 release. CARP was added to OpenBSD in release 3.5 to address the issue of high availability and uninterrupted service.


A chapter covering Logging, Monitoring, and Statistics helps bring it all together for the network administrator. Hansteen closes out the text with a chapter titled `Getting Your Setup Just Right` that provides a last-minute review of some of the most important configuration options.


If you're interested in `The Book of PF`, most likely you're already familiar with OpenBSD - one of the most secure operating systems available today. If you're ready to enhance OpenBSD's default security, pick up a copy of this book and spend some time with the pf program.

User review
The Defacto Book on OpenBSD firewalls
This book is great for all types of OpenBSD users. If you just want a to build a home router with better performance and more control, then this book is all you'll need. If you're looking to build an enterprise load balancer, this book is an excellent resource that you'd be hard pressed to live with out.

Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation

Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation
Wayne Huang, Keng Siau, Kwok Kee Wei, Keng Siau | 2005-03-22 00:00:00 | Idea Group Publishing | 300 | Computer Science
Digital government is a new frontier of the development of electronic commerce. Electronic Government Strategies and Implementation is a timely piece to address the issues involved in strategically implementing digital government, which is a collection of high-quality papers that covers the various aspects of digital government strategic issues and implementations from the perspectives of both developed and developing countries. Most published articles and/or papers on eGovernment implementation strategies, if not all, are based upon experience of developed countries, rather than developing countries. This book combines eGovernment implementation experiences from both developed and developing countries, and is useful to researchers and practitioners in the area as well as instructors teaching courses related to digital government and/or electronic commerce.
Download this book!

Free Ebooks Download

Advances in Digital Forensics III (IFIP International Federation for Information Processing) (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology)

Advances in Digital Forensics III (IFIP International Federation for Information Processing) (IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology)
Philip Craiger | 2007-08-23 00:00:00 | Springer | 378 | Digital Law

ADVANCES IN DIGITAL FORENSICS III

Edited by: Philip Craiger and Sujeet Shenoi

Digital forensics deals with the acquisition, preservation, examination, analysis and presentation of electronic evidence. Networked computing, wireless communications and portable electronic devices have expanded the role of digital forensics beyond traditional computer crime investigations. Practically every crime now involves some aspect of digital evidence; digital forensics provides the techniques and tools to articulate this evidence. Digital forensics also has myriad intelligence applications. Furthermore, it has a vital role in information assurance -- investigations of security breaches yield valuable information that can be used to design more secure systems.

Advances in Digital Forensics III describes original research results and innovative applications in the emerging discipline of digital forensics. In addition, it highlights some of the major technical and legal issues related to digital evidence and electronic crime investigations. The areas of coverage include:

- Legal Issues

- Insider Threat Detection

- Rootkit Detection

- Authorship Attribution

- Forensic Techniques

- File System Forensics

- Network Forensics

- Portable Electronic Device Forensics

- Evidence Analysis and Management

- Formal Methods

This book is the third volume in the annual series produced by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 11.9 on Digital Forensics, an international community of scientists, engineers and practitioners dedicated to advancing the state of the art of research and practice in digital forensics. The book contains a selection of twenty-four edited papers from the Third Annual IFIP WG 11.9 Conference on Digital Forensics, held at the National Center for Forensic Science, Orlando, Florida, USA in the spring of 2007.

Advances in Digital Forensics III is an important resource for researchers, faculty members and graduate students, as well as for practitioners and individuals engaged in research and development efforts for the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

Download this book!

Free Ebooks Download

Asthma in the Workplace, Second Edition, (Clinical Allergy and Immunology)

Asthma in the Workplace, Second Edition, (Clinical Allergy and Immunology)
David Bernstein | 1999-06-15 00:00:00 | Informa Healthcare | 742 | Popular Economics
Univ. of Cincinnati, OH. Research for occupational medicine physicians, epidemiologists, and respiratory medicine physicians. Includes all aspects of occupational asthma, including disease mechanisms, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and categories of causative agents. Previous edition: c1993.

Download this book!

Free Ebooks Download

Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think

Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think
| 2009-05-06 00:00:00 | | 0 | Computer Security


In this thought-provoking anthology, today's security experts describe bold and extraordinary methods used to secure computer systems in the face of ever-increasing threats. Beautiful Security features a collection of essays and insightful analyses by leaders such as Ben Edelman, Grant Geyer, John McManus, and a dozen others who have found unusual solutions for writing secure code, designing secure applications, addressing modern challenges such as wireless security and Internet vulnerabilities, and much more. Among the book's wide-ranging topics, you'll learn how new and more aggressive security measures work--and where they will lead us. Topics include: Rewiring the expectations and assumptions of organizations regarding security
Security as a design requirement
Evolution and new projects in Web of Trust
Legal sanctions to enforce security precautions
An encryption/hash system for protecting user data
The criminal economy for stolen information
Detecting attacks through context

Go beyond the headlines, hype, and hearsay. With Beautiful Security, you'll delve into the techniques, technology, ethics, and laws at the center of the biggest revolution in the history of network security. It's a useful and far-reaching discussion you can't afford to miss.

User review
A solid set of case histories and examples of how to build better security measures
BEAUTIFUL SECURITY: LEADING SECURITY EXPERTS EXPLAIN HOW THEY THINK provides a collection of essays on digital security and comes from experts who explain how social networking and other popular trends hurt online security efforts - and how to design new networks around these trends. Analysis of criminal attempts and logic patterns offer network security libraries a solid set of case histories and examples of how to build better security measures. Highly recommended.



User review
Well-written with broad coverage of a critical topic
Like O'Reilly's Beautiful Teams, this book's a series of essays by industry experts, this time focused on security. The various authors do a great job of covering topics from social engineering to forcing firms to focus on security. The chapters are all well-written, although a few do better jobs of keeping the material interesting and flowing.


You'll find plenty of security-related history in the book. Phil Zimmerman's chapter on PGP's Web Of Trust is one example. Pieter Zatko's discussion of his work on the LH0phtCrack is another. Both stories help expose mindsets which, sadly, haven't changed a whole lot.


Security, as with testing or overall quality, is at its most fundamental roots a culture issue. Not every story focuses on this aspect, but pointing out bad culture is a common theme through many of the chapters. Zatko's discussion of `Learned Helplessness,` John McManus's Security by Design, and Jim Routh's Forcing Firms to Focus are all great reads on this line. Many of the stories correctly emphasize that security isn't just about someone hacking code - it's a much broader issue.


As with any good security book, there's plenty of well-done content which will likely scare you in to re-thinking how you and your company approach security. Beautiful Security can help you identify practices, problems, and mindsets which leave you, your company, or your clients at risk.


Overall it's a very useful, highly readable book on a critical subject.

User review
A Resilient Text
Beautiful Security goes well beyond the confines of traditional security books that dive into technical minutia and bore you to tears. Yes there is technical jargon to be seen throughout, but the real hook to this collection of ideas and best practices is the thinking and logic the various contributors gracefully convey through the pages within. A section that spoke about an issue on my desk at the moment was the Improving Perspective with Host Logging - specifically the section regarding building a more resilient detection model.

User review
An eye-opening book that will challenge you
Books that collect chapters from numerous expert authors often fail to do more than be a collection of disjointed ideas. Simply combining expert essays does not always make for an interesting, cohesive read. Beautiful Security: Leading Security Experts Explain How They Think is an exception to that and is definitely worth a read. The books 16 chapters provide an interesting overview to the current and future states of security, risk and privacy. Each chapter is written by an established expert in the field and each author brings their own unique insights and approach to information security.


A premise of the book is that most people don't give security much attention until their personal or business systems are attacked or breached. The book notes that criminals often succeed by exercising enormous creativity when devising their attacks. They think outside of the box which the security people built to keep them out. Those who create defenses around digital assets must similarly use creativity when designing an information security solution.


Unfortunately, far too few organizations spend enough time thinking creatively about security. More often than not, it is simply about deploying a firewall and hoping the understaffed security team can deal with the rest of the risks.


The 16 essays, arranged in no particular theme are meant to show how fascinating information security can be. This is in defense to how security is often perceived, as an endless series of dialogue boxes and warnings, or some other block to keep a user from the web site or device they want to access. Each of the 16 essays is well-written, organized and well-argued. The following 4 chapter are particularly noteworthy.


Chapter 3 is titled Beautiful Security Metrics and details how security metrics can be effectively used, rather than simply being a vehicle for creating random statistics for management. Security metrics are a critical prerequisite for turning IT security into a science, instead of an art. With that, author Elizabeth Nichols notes that the security profession needs to change in ways that emulate the medical professional when it comes to metrics. She notes specifically that security must develop a system of vital signs and generally accepted metrics in the same way in which physicians work. The chapter also provides excellent insights on how to use metrics and how metrics, in addition to high-level questions that can be used to determine how effective security is within an organization.


Chapter 6 deals with online-advertising and the myriad problems in keeping it honest. Author Benjamin Edelman observed a problem with the online supply chain world, as opposed to brick and mortar (BAM) world, in that BAM companies have long-established procurement departments with robust internal controls, and carefully trained staff who evaluate prospective vendors to confirm legitimacy. In the online world, predominantly around Google AdSense, most advertisers and advertising networks lack any comparable rigor for evaluating their vendors. That has created a significant avenue for online advertising fraud, of which the on-line advertising is a victim to.


Edelman writes that he has uncovered hundreds of online advertising scams defrauding hundreds of thousands of users, in addition to the merchants themselves. The chapter details many of the deceptive advertisements that he has found, and shows how often web ads that tout something for free, is most often far from it.


Chapter 7 is about the PGP and the evolution of the PGP web of trust scheme. The chapter is written by PGP creator Phil Zimmerman, and current PGP CTO Jon Callas. It has been a long while since Zimmerman has written anything authoritative about PGP, so the chapter is a welcome one. Zimmerman and Callas note that while a lot has been written about PGP, much of it though containing substantial inaccuracies. The chapter provides invaluable insights into PGP and the history and use of cryptography. It also gives a thorough overview of the original PGP web of trust model, and recent enhancements bring PGP's web of trust up to date.


Chapter 9 is one of the standout chapters in the book. Mark Curphrey writes about the need to get people, processes and technology to work together so that the humans involved in information security can make better decisions. In the chapter, Curphrey deals with topical issues such as cloud computing, social networks, security economics and more. Curphrey notes that when he starts giving a presentation, he does it with the following quotation from Upton Sinclair -- `it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it`. He uses the quote to challenge listeners (and readers in this case) to question the reason why they are being presented the specific ideas, which serves as a reminder of common, subtle biases for thoughts and ideas presented as fact.


In its 250 pages, Beautiful Security is both a fascinating an enjoyable read. There are numerous security books that weight a few pounds a use reams of paper, that don't have a fraction of the real content that Beautiful Security has. With other chapters from industry luminaries such as Jim Routh, Randy Sabett, Anton Chuvakin and others, Beautiful Security is a required read.


For those that have an interest in information security or those that are frustrated by it, Beautiful Security is an eye-opening book that will challenge you, and change the way you think about information security. It is a good book for those whose who think information security is simply about deploying hardware, and an even better book for those who truly get information security.

User review
Beautiful Security is Timely, Important and Readable
Beautiful Security is full of pertinent information for all of us. The book is well written, covers topics we need to know about, is very readable. Start with the first entry by Mudge: his perspective is accurate and revealing and of course he writes well so enjoy the new insights you gain by reading this book. Highly recommended.

Raising Girls

Raising Girls
Melissa Trevathan,Sissy Goff | 2007-05-01 00:00:00 | Zondervan | 256 | Inspirational
'My six-year-old fusses with her hair for hours. Is this normal?' 'Yesterday my seventh grader was all sunshine. Today she's wearing black and won't leave her room.' 'I'm worried my teenager may have an eating disorder.' In today's complex world, parenting a girl is harder than ever. It takes more than love. It takes insight into the things that make your daughter tick as she grows from childhood to young adulthood. Drawing on the authors' fifty-plus years of combined counseling experience, Raising Girls takes you inside the mind and soul of your girl. You'll obtain seasoned, expert insights on * Your daughter's different stages of development from ages zero to nineteen * How you can effectively relate to her at each stage * What is normal behavior, what isn't, and when and how to intervene * How to deal with self-destructive behavior such as eating disorders, cutting, or experimentation with alcohol * ... and much more Spiced with stories, humor, and much reassurance, Raising Girls will help you encourage your daughter, challenge her, love her, and help her discover who God is creating her to be.
Reviews
A book by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff, this book is the one Amazon recommended to me as a complimentary book to "Wild Things: the Art of Nurturing Boys".

When I started reading this book, I was surprised and glad to see what a Christian focus it took - there was no trying to be sly about Christianity in this book. But, I was dismayed when I read that book authors were older women who were counselors and yet had never been married and never had children. I wondered how I could take their advice seriously, when I would be able to write off everything they said with the old, "Well, they've never lived this out. and they don't know what it's really like outside of the clinical environment." However, I came to repent of that attitude as I realised that they actually had an objective voice (or voices) that I did respect. Moms can tend to view, or skew things in a way that is biased by their own experiences; but these women didn't have that at all.

That being said, I think overall it was a helpful book - but a lot lighter fare than "Wild Things: the Art of Nurturing Boys". Although the authors spoke more about being a Christian parent; they also tended to tell a lot of stories and spend time on what I might call "fluff".

It does go into all the relationships in a girls life: her and her mother, her and her father, her and her siblings, her and her grandparents, etc.. And I think the descriptions of the different developmental stages were pretty accurate. So, the book does get my recommendation - just be aware that there is some "fluff" and that the authors are not parents.
Reviews
This book has nice insights on raising girls. I would have liked to have a little more discussion on the ages and stages, though. The chapters are a little short and I found myself wanting a little more...
Reviews
I am loving this book on raising girls -the authors speak with love and wisdom and experience! I appreciate that they are coming from a different perspective than just that of parents, but as counselors, who really know what girls today are going through.
Reviews
Sissy Goff and Melissa Trevathan have crafted such a wonderful book with priceless insight and wisdom. If you have a daughter, niece or special little girl in your life Raising Girls is a must to equip you with knowledge and skills to raise a great girl in today's world!

Susan Johnston, co-author of Princess Bubble
Reviews
This is a very thoughtful look at the problems and joys of raising girls. The authors are clearly very knowledgable and committed to helping girls to grow up to be who they were meant to be, secure in God's love and their place in the great scheme of things! I love the way they use case histories & stories to teach. As a mother of 3 girls, I found this book very straightforward in dealing with the issues that young girls and adolescents face, but also helpful and encouraging.

Download this book!

Free Ebooks Download