Synopses & Reviews
There are many ways that a potential attacker can intercept information, or learnmore about the sender, as the information travels over a network. Silence on the Wireuncovers these silent attacks so that system administrators can defend against them,as well as better understand and monitor their systems.
Silence on the Wire dissects several unique and fascinating security andprivacy problems associated with the technologies and protocols used in everydaycomputing, and shows how to use this knowledge to learn more about others or tobetter defend systems. By taking an indepth look at modern computing, from hardwareon up, the book helps the system administrator to better understand security issues,and to approach networking from a new, more creative perspective. The sys admin canapply this knowledge to network monitoring, policy enforcement, evidence analysis,IDS, honeypots, firewalls, and forensics.
Synopsis
- Author is very well-known in the security/hacking community
- With a Foreword by Solar Designer (also the book's technical reviewer)
- Stimulates readers to think more creatively about security problems
- Focuses on non-trivial and significant problems, not hype
Synopsis
Written by a well-known figure in the security/hacking community, this book stimulates readers to think more creatively about security problems and focuses on non-trivial and significant problems, not hype. The captivating narrative examines the journey of a packet of information, from input to destination, the secrets it divulges, and the security problems it faces along the way.
About the Author
Michal Zalewski is an internationally recognized information security expert with a long track record of cutting-edge research. He is credited with discovering hundreds of notable security vulnerabilities, and is also the author of numerous important research papers. He is ranked #5 on eWeek's "The 15 Most Influential People in Security Today," #51 on CIO Insight's "100 Most Influential People in IT," and is counted among 11 hacking experts on ITSecurity's "Top Influencers in IT Security." He is also the author of Silence on the Wire (No Starch Press).
Table of Contents
Dedication; Foreword; Introduction; A Few Words about Me; About This Book; The Source; Chapter 1: I Can Hear You Typing; 1.1 The Need for Randomness; 1.2 The Security of Random Number Generators; 1.3 I/O Entropy: This Is Your Mouse Speaking; 1.4 Entropy Is a Terrible Thing to Waste; 1.5 Attack: The Implications of a Sudden Paradigm Shift; 1.6 Food for Thought; Chapter 2: Extra Efforts Never Go Unnoticed; 2.1 Boole's Heritage; 2.2 Toward the Universal Operator; 2.3 Toward the Material World; 2.4 A Nonelectric Computer; 2.5 A Marginally More Popular Computer Design; 2.6 From Logic Operators to Calculations; 2.7 From Electronic Egg Timer to Computer; 2.8 Turing and Instruction Set Complexity; 2.9 Implications: Subtle Differences; 2.10 In Practice; 2.11 Prevention; 2.12 Food for Thought; Chapter 3: Ten Heads of the Hydra; 3.1 Revealing Emissions: TEMPEST in the TV; 3.2 Privacy, Limited; Chapter 4: Working for the Common Good; Safe Harbor; Chapter 5: Blinkenlights; 5.1 The Art of Transmitting Data; 5.2 The Implications of Aesthetics; 5.3 Building Your Own Spy Gear . . .; 5.4 . . . And Using It with a Computer; 5.5 Preventing Blinkenlights Data Disclosure--and Why It Will Fail; 5.6 Food for Thought; Chapter 6: Echoes of the Past; 6.1 Building the Tower of Babel; 6.2 The Missing Sentence; 6.3 Food for Thought; Chapter 7: Secure in Switched Networks; 7.1 Some Theory; 7.2 Attacking the Architecture; 7.3 Prevention of Attacks; 7.4 Food for Thought; Chapter 8: Us versus Them; 8.1 Logical Blinkenlights and Their Unusual Application; 8.2 The Unexpected Bits: Personal Data All Around; 8.3 Wi-Fi Vulnerabilities; Out in the Wild; Chapter 9: Foreign Accent; 9.1 The Language of the Internet; 9.2 Internet Protocol; 9.3 Beyond Internet Protocol; 9.4 User Datagram Protocol; 9.5 Transmission Control Protocol Packets; 9.6 Internet Control Message Protocol Packets; 9.7 Enter Passive Fingerprinting; 9.8 Passive Fingerprinting in Practice; 9.9 Exploring Passive-Fingerprinting Applications; 9.10 Prevention of Fingerprinting; 9.11 Food for Thought: The Fatal Flaw of IP Fragmentation; Chapter 10: Advanced Sheep-Counting Strategies; 10.1 Benefits and Liabilities of Traditional Passive Fingerprinting; 10.2 A Brief History of Sequence Numbers; 10.3 Getting More Out of Sequence Numbers; 10.4 Delayed Coordinates: Taking Pictures of Time Sequences; 10.5 Pretty Pictures: TCP/IP Stack Gallery; 10.6 Attacking with Attractors; 10.7 Back to System Fingerprinting; 10.8 Preventing Passive Analysis; 10.9 Food for Thought; Chapter 11: In Recognition of Anomalies; 11.1 Packet Firewall Basics; 11.2 The Consequences of Masquerading; 11.3 Segment Size Roulette; 11.4 Stateful Tracking and Unexpected Responses; 11.5 Reliability or Performance: The DF Bit Controversy; 11.6 Food for Thought; Chapter 12: Stack Data Leaks; 12.1 Kristjan's Server; 12.2 Surprising Findings; 12.3 Revelation: Phenomenon Reproduced; 12.4 Food for Thought; Chapter 13: Smoke and Mirrors; 13.1 Abusing IP: Advanced Port Scanning; 13.2 Defense against Idle Scanning; 13.3 Food for Thought; Chapter 14: Client Identification: Papers, Please!; 14.1 Camouflage; 14.2 A (Very) Brief History of the Web; 14.3 A HyperText Transfer Protocol Primer; 14.4 Making HTTP Better; 14.5 Uncovering Treasons; 14.6 Prevention; 14.7 Food for Thought; Chapter 15: The Benefits of Being a Victim; 15.1 Defining Attacker Metrics; 15.2 Protecting Yourself: Observing Observations; 15.3 Food for Thought; The Big Picture; Chapter 16: Parasitic Computing, or How Pennies Add Up; 16.1 Nibbling at the CPU; 16.2 Practical Considerations; 16.3 Parasitic Storage: The Early Days; 16.4 Making Parasitic Storage Feasible; 16.5 Applications, Social Considerations, and Defense; 16.6 Food for Thought; Chapter 17: Topology of the Network; 17.1 Capturing the Moment; 17.2 Using Topology Data for Origin Identification; 17.3 Network Triangulation with Mesh-Type Topology Data; 17.4 Network Stress Analysis; 17.5 Food for Thought; Chapter 18: Watching the Void; 18.1 Direct Observation Tactics; 18.2 Attack Fallout Traffic Analysis; 18.3 Detecting Malformed or Misdirected Data; 18.4 Food for Thought; Closing Words; Bibliographic Notes; ; Updates;