[4792] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux-Announce Digest #85
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Digestifier)
Wed Mar 30 00:13:06 2005
From: Digestifier <Linux-Announce-Request@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Reply-To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:13:03 EST
Linux-Announce Digest #85, Volume #5 Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:13:03 EST
Contents:
No Starch Press's "Silence on the Wire" (Dawn Mann)
Open Source/Free Software: Political science ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Dawn Mann <nostarchpr@oreilly.com>
Subject: No Starch Press's "Silence on the Wire"
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 12:36:17 CST
***MEDIA ALERT***
GROUNDBREAKING SECURITY BOOK GOES BEYOND THE NORM
TO EXAMINE COMPUTER VULNERABILITIES
Contact Patricia Witkin to request a review copy or schedule an author
interview at patricia@nostarch.com or 415.863.9900.
PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU HAVE ALREADY REQUESTED A REVIEW COPY,
IT WILL BE ARRIVING SHORTLY.
WHAT: It's here: the much anticipated first book by computer security
researcher Michal Zalewski, "Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive
Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks." Truly unlike anything else out
there, this book is a fascinating narrative that explores a variety of
unique, uncommon and often quite elegant security challenges that defy
classification and eschew the traditional attacker-victim model. Includes
introduction by Openwall Project leader Solar Designer.
EARLY REVIEWS: "Zalewski's new work is a demonstration of how seemingly
innocuous observations can lead to security vulnerabilities. He works
like a detective, piecing together basic facts and evidence, until at
last, in a moment of understanding, you find out why your RNG may help
disclose your keystrokes or how someone can tell what OS your run by
looking at your packets."
--Elias Levy (Aleph1), BUGTRAQ
"Zalewski has taken taken a powerful, low-level approach to information
security. He covers many issues not discussed before in so comprehensive
a volume, including issues of random memory, the inner workings of
computers, electronic emissions and concepts of passive data collection."
--Lance Spitzner, Honeynet Project
"Zalewski is a rare gem of a person, pursuing pure discovery and
investigation and artfully combining this with his great intelligence.
We're all considerably wiser for hearing his perspective on things."
--Jose Nazario, infosec Daily
WHO CARES?: More narrative than reference work, this book will be riveting
reading for security professionals and students as well as technophiles
interested in learning about how computer security fits into the big
picture and high-level hackers seeking to broaden their understanding of
their craft. Mixing elements of computer science, mathematics and
electronics, "Silence on the Wire" is provocative and challenging. Rather
than approaching computer security as a separate discipline, Zalewski
delves into the nuts and bolts of modern-day computing so that readers
will ponder network design and their own computing activities from a new
perspective. Where other books merely chronicle security exploits,
Zalewski provides explanations. He addresses real, significant lapses in
computer security that are not well known or, in some cases, aren't even
well understood by experts.
AUTHOR INFO: Michal Zalewski is a self-taught information security
researcher who has worked on topics ranging from hardware and OS design
principles to networking. He has long been known and respected in the
hacking and security communities for his intelligence, curiosity and
creativity. He's been a prolific bug hunter and a frequent BUGTRAQ poster
since the mid '90s, has authored popular security utilities and has
published a number of acclaimed security research papers.
OTHER RESOURCES: Download a sample chapter and see the table of contents
and book cover at http://www.nostarch.com/download/silence_ch05.pdf
BOOK INFO: SILENCE ON THE WIRE: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance
and Indirect Attacks, Michal Zalewski, ISBN 159327-0461, April 2005, US
$39.95 ($55.95 Cdn) Available at fine bookstores everywhere, from
www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or directly from No Starch Press
(www.nostarch.com, orders@nostarch.com, 800.420.7240) No Starch Press
titles are distributed throughout the U.S. by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ABOUT NO STARCH PRESS: Since 1994, No Starch Press has published unique
books on technology, with a focus on Open Source, security, hacking,
programming, gaming and alternative operating systems. Our titles have
personality, our authors are passionate, and our books tackle topics that
people care about. More information available at www.nostarch.com.
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From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: Open Source/Free Software: Political science
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 14:51:00 CST
There's this course on FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) that is just
getting underway in Sweden. See
https://winner.informatik.gu.se/moodle/course/category.php?id=2
Its self-description: "The course will study the development of politics,
policy and law in relation to the role of software in society. Subjects which
will be treated in depth are the role of free software/open source in relation
to property theory, the politics of technology, community governance and the
economic foundations for the assessment of free software/open source
development."
It might be of interest to note that the course is pretty much 'open' and
'free'. In the many senses of those words. Students from across the globe can
(maybe 'could', since the cut-off date for joining might be passed) join the
course with just a simple email application. Best of all: no fees!
It's also running on a FLOSS-based e-education platform called Moodle. Haven't
used Moodle myself, but here's the self-description:
OPENQUOTE: http://moodle.org/
Moodle is a course Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a software
package designed to help educators create quality online courses. Such
e-learning systems are sometimes also called Learning Management Systems (LMS)
or Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). One of the main advantages of Moodle
over other systems is a strong grounding in social constructionist pedagogy.
Moodle is Open Source software, which means you are free to download it, use
it, modify it and even distribute it (under the terms of the GNU General Public
License). Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X,
Netware and any other system that supports PHP, including most webhost
providers. Data is stored in a single database: MySQL and PostgreSQL are best
supported, but it can also be used with Oracle, Access, Interbase, ODBC and
others.
Moodle has 50 language packs, including: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese (simplified
and traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK and US versions), Finnish,
French (France and Canada versions), German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian,
Italian, Japanese, Maori, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil),
Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai and Turkish.
To find out more, see the features demo, try the demonstration courses on this
site, or see the growing number of Moodle sites around the world. To meet other
Moodle users, join us in the Using Moodle course. ENDQUOTE
FN
_____
_/ ____\____ Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa
\ __\/ \ India T +91.832.2409490 M +919822 122436
| | | | \ http://fn.swiki.net http://goabooks.swiki.net
|__| |___| / http://www.bytesforall.net http://www.bytesforall.org
\/ -----------------------------------------------------
Sign up for low-volume, high-quality news summaries and updates from
Goa at http://newsfromgoa.swiki.net * It's free and volunteer-driven.
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