I read and reviewed the original "Hacker's Challenge" in Nov 01, and gave that book four stars. Mike Schiffman and crew have recaptured the magic and published another winner: "Hacker's Challenge 2" (HC2). This is the sort of book that needs to be used when interviewing new hires or promoting technical staff. If the candidate has read the book and knows the answers to the challenges, she at least demonstrates her commitment to learning, as well as an ability to remember what she reads. If she can solve the challenges without having read the book, she shows a higher level of skill. If she has no clue how to respond to the challenges, you can move on to the next candidate.

The majority of HC2 involves three subjects. Challenges 1,3,7, and 16 revolve around wireless insecurities. Challenges 2,5,6,15, and 17 discuss network-based attacks. Solving the mysteries of challenges 4,11,12,14,18, and 19 require log analysis. A few other issues are sprinkled through the text: social engineering (ch. 8), host-based digital forensics (ch. 9), a man-in-the-middle attack against SSH (ch. 13), and a crafty buffer overflow tutorial (ch. 10). None of the material struck me as being exceptionally original, although this accurately reflects the sorts of cases handled by most consultants! I was impressed by the level of explanation offered by challenge 17, where vulnerabilities associated with VLAN 1 were exposed.

HC2 has a few weaknesses. I was sorry to see Peter Lemonjello fired in challenge 5, but he appeared to strike again in challenge 11. Pages 126-8 featured some of the oddest techno-babble in print, offering obscure references to Rabindranath Tagore and condescending dialogue with a tech support staffer. I've given up on seeing Mike Schiffman correctly abbreviate the Air Force Information Warfare Center as "AFIWC" in his biography. His use of "AFWIC" must refer to the UN's AFrican Women In Crisis program and not the talk he gave to the AFIWC in Apr 99!

HC2 is the first must-buy of 2003, but it leaves some room for improvement. Future editions should provide greater details in the solutions, like explanations of the fields in various firewall logs. I'd also like to see the author's names on the challenges, as appeared in the first HC book. The bottom line is that HC2 is a fast read that will entertain, and more importantly, educate.

Yes, Slightly better than the first edition.
However, if you need or like this kind of books give first a try to "Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box" by Ryan Russell, the same idea, but a lot more illustrative and easy to read (still with the same level of very up to date information).
Some extra bucks to spend ?. . . OK, then try both, they complement each other very well.

The second "The Hacker's Challenge" brought with it another sleepless night of fun security reading. 19 attack cases with solutions and mitigation and prevention strategies are described by a team of known expert authors led by Mike Schiffman.

Impressive wireless DoS attack, social engineering penetrations (including one case with no technical penetration whatsoever), mysterious web defacements, SQL injection, DNS tunneling case and router attack inform and educate, just as the first book did. Authors' mildly perverse sense of humor keeps the reader in a good mood. The book begs to be read in one helping (and then reread, as needed)! "The Challenge 2" again covers a wide range of victims and attack methods.

An interesting case asks for writing an exploit and provides a walkthrough for a simple local buffer overflow attack, a novel feature of this edition.

At about scenario 12, things start to heat up and solving the case starts to require some thinking. Harder to crack cases and more sophisticated attackers up the fun level and value of information learned. Just as in the first book, solving the case usually takes some log analysis, some security knowledge and careful reading about character actions and observations.

In addition to technology-astute readers, the book will also satisfy the hard-core security policy fans. Some of the questions asked about the cases involve policy decisions.

As for the book minor blemishes, it suffers a bit from a "sequel syndrome". Namely, since the first book was so amazingly good, it is very hard to beat it and most people will compare it to the first one. Let's say that "The Challenge 2" is almost as good as its predecessor. A couple of scenarios sound somewhat ridiculous (e.g. one on "wireless terrorists"). Another couple is painfully obvious (few people are impressed by a /bin/sh bound to a port in inetd.conf or by a default router password nowadays). In addition, the scenario names often give out a hint that spoils the fun of "cracking" the story ("Freeloader" and some others).

Overall, the book is a must have, both for its educational and entertainment value. The Hacker Challenge books fuse fun storyline, mystery and technical information in one great package, that makes for awesome reading for all technical readers, in security field and beyond. It was clearly a great idea to invent such a "security thriller" book.

Anton Chuvakin, Ph.D., GCIA is a Senior Security Analyst with a major information security company. His areas of infosec expertise include intrusion detection, UNIX security, forensics, honeypots, etc. In his spare time, he maintains his security portal info-secure.org

A fascinating story and worthy tribute to Joseph Bazalgette, an underappreciated Victorina-era engineer responsible not only for designing and overseeing the construction of London's huge sanitary sewer system, but also the construction of Victoria, Chelsea and Albert Embankments, forever changing the face and character of central London. We take so much of our modern cities for granted, not realizing that entire rivers are flowing under the streets, blissfully unaware of the level of vision and committment required to create an infrastructure that provides health and convenience.

The writing style is breezy and lucid, although the author has a distracting habit of repetition. Certain factoids, such as "the embankments reclaimed 52 acres of land" are repeated over and over again, and several favorite quotes are repeated at least 3 times.

I won't ever look at a modern city the same way.

While the title implies the book's focus will be London's "Great Stink" of 1858, it is in fact a short biography of the eminent Victorian civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette. Less remembered than his fellow engineers Isambard Brunel or Robert Stephenson, Bazalgette was the Chief Engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works for some 30 years.

During his tenure, he oversaw the construction of the great intercepting sewers of London which effectively removed the recurring threat of cholera from the city even before that disease's transmission mechanism was fully understood. In addition, the great Embankments along the Thames were designed and built by Bazalgette which make the modern waterfront as we know it today. He also built three bridges still standing across the Thames and designed many of the modern thoroughfares of London.

This book focuses on the long political battles waged in Parliament, the press, and within the City itself to solve the massive problem of human waste disposal in the world's largest western metropolis of the day. Although ostensibly about a civil engineer, there is not much engineering in the book - making it highly accessible to the layperson. Copious contemporary illustrations out of "Punch" and the "Illustrated London News" along with lengthy quotations from "The Times" make the Victorians' view of this smelly problem come to life. It's fortunate that this is not a scratch-and-sniff book.

The main chapters include those devoted to the invention of the water closet (a sewage nightmare), cholera and sanitation, and the building of the embankments. Throughout the book, small sidebars give potted biographies of key players and interested parties of the day such as Dickens, W.H. Smith, Gladstone, Dr. John Snow, and others. These are great little tidbits on the people featured in the main narrative and they are liberally sprinkled with caricatures from "Spy".

The book does touch on Bazalgette's early endorsement and use of Portland cement as a technical innovation as well as the quality assurance testing techniques that he enforced during his projects. So engineer, take heart! There are interesting bits for you as well.

If dark places under the heart of the metropolis is your area of interest, see also "London Under London" by Richard Trench & Ellis Hillman for sewers, the Tube, and more subterranean passages. And if you simply must have olfactory re-enforcement to imagine the past, try "Victorian Vapours" by Mary J. Dobson.

Halliday's book tells the story of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, Chief Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works (London's first metropolitan government) from 1856 to 1889.

His greatest achievement was building for London a sanitation system of unprecedented scale and complexity. Throughout history, the main cause of death has been the contamination of drinking water by sewage. In particular, cholera spread when the faeces of sufferers contaminated drinking water: cholera epidemics in London killed 6,536 people in 1831-32, 14,137 in 1848-49, and 10,738 in 1853-54.

In the long hot summer of 1858, the stench from rotting sewage in the Thames drove MPs from Westminster. The 'Great Stink' forced them, belatedly, to act. Bazalgette was charged with building a system to prevent sewage getting into Londoners' drinking water, which he did. The 1866 cholera epidemic killed 5,596 people in the East End, the sole part of London that had not yet been protected by Bazalgette's intercepting system. After the system was completed, cholera would never again kill Londoners. Bazalgette had turned the Thames from the filthiest to the cleanest metropolitan river in the world and added some twenty years to Londoners' lives.

But this was not Bazalgette's only success. He constructed the Victoria, Albert and Chelsea Embankments, where he introduced the use of Portland cement. He laid out Shaftesbury Avenue, Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross Road, the Embankment Gardens, Battersea Park and Clapham Common. He built the bridges at Hammersmith, Putney and Battersea. He introduced the Woolwich Free Ferry and designed the Blackwall Tunnel.

In 1889, the London County Council replaced the Board: Bazalgette's successes had proven the value of local government for great cities. Roy Porter wrote that Bazalgette stands with Wren and Nash 'as one of London's noblest builders'. John Doxat wrote, "this superb and farsighted engineer probably did more good, and saved more lives, than any single Victorian public official."

This book attempts to marry jungian psychology,eastern religion and a bit of Christian mysticism and fails dismally.The plot is totally disjointed, jumping from pre-war Vienna to wartime Europe to India to Israel and back to India with very little connection in the plot. The characters are wooden and it is impossible to feel any empathy for any of them, even when they are being burned to death or being cruelly blinded. When I read bits out to my family they thought it was a spoof and laughed.

If you are not inclined toward books that compel you to think about the spiritual mysteries of life, about the way we choose to make decisions, about our processes for determining what and who will influence us and how, don't bother. But if you want to read a book that is hauntingly lyrical, that compels you to think about your own spiritual and intellectual journeys, that drives you to consider the reasons that propel you to do what you do, then read this book. Marvelous parallel structure which moves unerringly, unflinchingly, inexorably to a conclusion that forces you to confront not only your own mortality, but the legacy you believe you are building, the people you believe you are influencing and effecting--and how and why you proceed through your life's journey.

Reader from usa certainly got this wrong - not even a mention of Vienna or Israel. I guess this is the problem. This is a highly mystical book and will only be understood by those who have that inclination. Others will see it as confusing. I thought this was one of the great works of the last year and have made sure I have told everyone about it. It moved me for weeks after and to give this a bad review is just impossible.

I enjoied this book, but I feel it is a bit unrealistic. I liked the dancing descriptions, but the superiority of the main charachter compared to the other charachters was annoying. Maggie's scornful attitude to an overweight dancer was just mean. And her mothers helpless attitude just got on my nerves. This book did not live up to my expectations.

I really enjoyed this book when I got it. I was probably around 13 at the time and heavily into ballet. The characters are realistic, and so are the issues of a ballet dancer. It's more than just about ballet; there are other things, family, boyfriends that have an effect on a dancer's life. And not every dancer's story ends in a climactic, brilliant performance. I liked this book and Maggie Adams a lot. I hope I find the others.

"Maggie Adams, Dancer" is one of my favorite books. I've read it over and over. It is such a realistic book, and many people can relate to the issues and situations in here. Maggie Adams' struggle to prove herself a great dancer is very inspiring, and many people can relate to it. I think that this is the perfect book for any ballet fan or dancer, or anyone who likes to read about ballet. It was a terrific book.

WOW! You have no idea how good it feels seeing that some people actually appreciated my writings.. that's just awesome! Thanks so much for taking the time to understand how i felt (I was only 10) about having to live with Tourette's Syndrome. Thanks even more for reviewing my book.. wow. I'm glad to see I've been able to reach people and help them. I'm 20 now, and it's been 10 years since I wrote those books, but it was a genuine feeling of accomplishment and meaning when I read your reviews. Again, thank you very much, you just made my dad/week/year..

(It wouldn't let me post this without rating the book, so I gave it a middle-rating of 3, hope I don't affect anything with that)

The book is written for a very young audience, but when my 27 year-old son read it he cried. He could remember feeling the same way, and even doing the same things. He had never talked to anyone about it, but really opened up after reading it. We had a hard time getting a diagnosis, so it was especially heartfelt for me to learn that we're not alone in this big thing.

Our entire Tourette group has passed this book around and it is very good. Even small children can understand the messages here. And, they are happy to find out a young child their age wrote it. Two adult Touretters also said they felt just that way, and never thought anyone else did.

This trade paperback features the last Hulk stories Peter David wrote and you could tell that by then he had run out of ideas to do wih the Hulk so he wrote a story where something really devestating happens with the Green Guy.It was something that most readers did not like and many haven't read the comic ever since. It was a sad ways for david to end what was mostly a suucessful run on that comic. Today the Marvel novels that feature the Hulk are the only source of good story material left that they can still better Hulk stories.

This TPB effectively brings the reader the greatest and most important stories of the relationship between Betty Ross and Bruce Banner.
All of the stories are very entertaining, and yet very tragic.

If your a Betty Ross Banner fan, you'll love this! Its a tribute to the love between Bruce and Betty. Betty is one of the most substansial characters in Bruce Banners life, and this helps her legacy continue until after her demise. Every Hulk fan will love this book. I highly reccomend it. Also, the Harpy's in it.

This book seems like a great idea -- jump into following more commandments, one at a time. So why don't I like it? Well, because there *are* connections between the various mitzvot, and this book ignores them.

A very wise rabbi once said to me, "There are only two correct answers to a question about whether you follow a particular mitzvah: 'yes" and 'not yet'." This book seems like it addresses this very issue: how does one begin? But the book focuses on each individual piece of halakhah as though it exists in isolation, which of course, none of it does. The book feels very scattered, distractingly so.

So if you are looking for a way to start practicing any particular mitzvah, this book may help you with suggestions for how to start at a walk, rather than running flat-out. But if you want a road map to a more observant life, you will find it lacking in a cohesive approach, or plan.

This is a beautiful book that gives tremendous insight into Jewish spirituality. It shows that Judaism, just like her spiritual daughter, Catholicism, is a religion that expresses her faith through action. It gives the common sense advice that those new to the tradition of mitzvot should go slowly, taking one mitzvah at a time, and gradually adding more to one's Jewish routine. Even non-Jews such as myself can only benefit from considering whether some of these mitzvot -- such as honoring parents, visiting the sick, learning more about Judaism -- might enrich our Christian spiritual commitment.

The only drawback to this book is that the good works it recommends appear to be selective. I don't mean that the book must be exhaustive, only that it does not consider good works that might arise from a differing world view, even among Jews.

For example, the book takes great pains to expound upon the Jewish commitment to compassion for animals, but does not mention the Jewish commitment to the dignity of all human life, from the womb to the tomb. Many Jews participate alongside their Christian brothers and sisters in the commitment toward ending abortion. Why is this not considered in the book as a mitzvah, but the book does consider the mitzvah of seriously modifying one's lifestyle out of compassion for animals? Rabbi Artson does make the crucial distinction that humans have a distinct difference in dignity than animals since human beings are persons who are made "in the image and likeness of God." So why is there no consideration of modifying one's world view and lifestyle out of love for unborn children?

Other than this complaint, I found this book to be beautiful and wonderfully helpful in appreciating Jewish spirituality.

I can't stand it when reviewers quibble about minor points they don't like and then give 4 or 3 stars to a superb book like this one. Artson's book is organized beautifully. Furthermore, it's highly readable, intelligent, concrete, and thought-provoking. His book of Torah commentary (The Bedside Torah) is another wonderful book.

As if anyone really cares about the Corp, and that includes the new breed of Aggies. It's a tired tradition of a bunch of military wannabe's that couldn't get into U of Texas. Come on...no one other than Aggies will buy this book, just another constant reminder to Aggies that since they got a second rate education they can fall back on school pride. While you Whoop and Holler....the rest of the world says "WHO CARES".

This book is full of great information about the University and the Corps. Best compilation of data I have seen and written in a captivating manner. Several humorous stories help to bring the history to life. Amazing how more things changed over the years, the more they actually stayed the same.

This is one of the two best books about the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University, the other being "The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band" -- both infinitely better than honorable efforts such as "Hey Aggies, You Caught That Damn Old Rat Yet?" and "The Corps at Aggieland." In addition to Corps organization charts that trace the organization's structure from its earliest chronicled times, Adams' account is rich with anecdotal and archival material about an established and unique Texas institution.

I was in the Corps at A&M, two classes after the author, so I recognized his descriptions of those times as wholly accurate and illuminating.

I did not want to be in the Corps. I thought it was a bunch of puerile stupidity. My parents insisted I try, giving me permission in advance to quit, if I wanted to do so. After about a week, however, the challenge and the spirit captured me completely, and -- despite the extremely difficult, peculiar environment -- I determined that nothing could make me quit. An upperclassmen, one of Adams' contemporaries, advised one evening: "If you quit this, you will find that quitting is easy, and you will make it a habit. It's the worst habit you can form."

The habit of not quitting, for which I fully, wholly, completely credit the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University, enabled me to complete the Army's Airborne and Ranger Schools while I was a cadet in the Corps, then later overcome numerous difficulties in my ensuing mainstream career.

Adams' book makes a fine gift for anyone thinking about going to Texas A&M, anyone presently attending A&M, anyone who ever went there, and all the folks who wish they had. The Corps of Cadets is the embodiment, the vanguard, the foundation of the Spirit of Aggieland, and is responsible for making Texas A&M a university worth attending.

If you go to Texas A&M and you don't join the Corps, you might as well have gone to Texas, TCU, San Marcos or any of the numerous other plain old vanilla fraternity/sorority schools in the state. The Corps of Cadets is what makes A&M the best college Texas has to offer. Period.

If you like playing mini gods then this book is alright. If you like this book then let me suggest Secrets of the black hand for vampire. Do you think your enemys really stand a chance if your mage can creat your own univers...

Hey peeps, this is actually a good book, basically it's telling you all about those who dont achieve ascension, and nolonger can, by making any of the characters in the book or following any of the paths in it, you can no-longer achive ascension even the oracles, failed in achieving the thing the game is mainly about.

Although I would never let a player have so much power as to have spheres above 5, it was intresting to read about the Arch-spheres. Plus it clarified the whole Oracle,God,Archmage thing. All of which are cool concepts and could make for intresting plotlines. such as if a player manages to get his Arete up above 7 as a gift from his storyteller (geez it's hard to do) it could be intresting to have to go on a search for one of these GREATER beings and garner some knowledge from them before they can complete a seeking. Accually thinking about it I would possibly allow players to get up to lvl 6 spheres just because it takes 5 years worth of study and practice to gain it and every dot above. I guess if a player had spent that much time and effort into getting the darn dot I'd let him have it, but it may take a year real-time for 5 years to go by in my games anyways.

Sorry rant. Great book though.

You will get to know some members of a small mining town in New Brunswick, all struggling to figure themselves out, find love, and place themselves in a difficult world.

I had some trouble getting used to his unique style of writing - David Adams Richards writes as if observing his characters and describing their actions and thoughts as if he's from another land altogether. This was very distracting for me, and tended to take away my flow of reading. On the other hand, it was also challenging, in that it made me think about the characters and what their words and actions meant.

The last 20-30 pages are by far the best of the entire novel and well worth the read.

Slow going at times, but it wraps up nicely and the reader is feeling as though everything is as it should and always has been.

What I recognize in my second adventure into this author's work is a particular truth--which is that (at least in my Canadian experience) poor communities have a singular commonality. There is a language, both spoken and experiential, about being poor that transcends its environment. In Richards' books, poor in Toronto sounds and feels a lot like poor in New Brunswick. While the physical aspects are very different, the population isn't. And there was something so familiar about some of the characters that I felt as if I'd known them in my childhood.

Poor angry, alienated to the point of sickness Adele; her mother, lovely, determined Rita, making the best of her marriage to alcoholic Joe--who just may be one of the most perfectly rendered characters I've ever encountered. One cannot help but love and feel for Joe, battling his demons and temptations that all reside within bottles; stammering, powerful Joe with his big body and battered, but still functioning heart; Joe the unlikeliest of heroes.

There is such a cast of characters in this book; they have their hopes and miseries and they all intersect at one point or another as time eases away unnoticed and fate makes itself felt in every way in the hushed, shattering beauty of a blizzard.

David Adams Richards is the consummate observer, translating his visions into quiet, apparently effortless prose; placing people before us in all their flawed splendor so that we might view the human condition and reflect upon our similarities and differences.

My highest recommendation.