Musings

Book Reviews

Here we are gathering book reviews on information and network security, management, and leadership.

Book Review: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama - February 4th, 2008
Book Review: LAN Switch Security:What Hackers Know About Your Switches, by Eric Vyncke and Christopher Paggen - January 11th, 2008
Book Review: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath - January 2nd, 2008
Book Review: Geekonomics, by David Rice - December 27th, 2007
Book Review: End-to-End Network Security, by Omar Santos - December 6th, 2007
Book alert, Behind the Screen: Hacking Hollywood, by Mark Stone - November 27th, 2007
Book Review: Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking, by Paul Asadoorian and Larry Pesce; Raul Siles Technical Editor - October 31st, 2007
Book Review: The Black Swan: The Impact of the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - October 27th, 2007
The Best Security Books to have in your library - October 25th, 2007
Book Review: The Age of Speed, by Vince Poscente - October 2nd, 2007
Book Review: Virtual Honeypots by Niels Provos and Thorsten Holz - August 21st, 2007
Book Review: Seduced by Success by Robert J. Herbold - June 26th, 2007
Book Review: Selling Blue Elephants, by Moskowitz and Gofman - June 25th, 2007
Book Review of Snow Crash leads to Second Life - April 18th, 2007
Book Review: Miracle in the Andes, by Nando Parrado and Vince Rause - February 20th, 2007
Book Review - Information Security Law: Control of Digital Assets - February 19th, 2007
Book Review - Cisco Network Admission Control - January 1st, 2007
Book Review: The Art of Software Security Assessment - December 19th, 2006

Book Review: Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking, by Paul Asadoorian and Larry Pesce; Raul Siles Technical Editor

October 31st, 2007
By Stephen Northcutt



I think the most important contribution this book will make is to help people understand that it is possible to change those innocuous Linksys boxes. After all, they are everywhere. I don't personally plan to try to hardware hack my Linksys router tonight after finishing reading the book, but it is on the list. Heavens knows, I have three or four sitting in the equipment closet from before we upgraded my home office to professional equipment. In the book we learn the parts of a Linksys router; to be truthful, I had never thought about that. There is a discussion about overclocking the router to make the processor run faster. Talk about a blast from the past, brings back the old 8086/8088 days.[1] It was dangerous then and it still is today. There is a discussion about the OpenWrt[2] team, without them, this would never be possible.

So you are probably thinking; why? Well, economics for one thing, as one article put it, "The story of the Linksys Wireless-G Router (model WRT54G) and how you can turn a $60 router into a $600 router is a little bit CSI and a little bit Freaks & Geeks."[3] For me the book was a real eye-opener to learn how much people have done with the WRT54G, there are a number of choices in firmware, even semi-commercial choices such as Talisman. These third-party firmware distributions allow you to establish VPNs, hotspots, mesh and even SIP VoIP. This book is extensively researched, we learn how to set up DHCP, SAMBA even Kismet! There are even several methods for increasing the wireless radio transmit power and or antenna modifications. U.S. readers are cautioned this can get you into trouble, I know I ended up sending my FM pirate radio system to a missionary group in Africa because it was just too tempting and in an urban area the FCC will eventually get you. The biggest surprise for me was the use of a WRT54G (with an adapter) as a bluetooth scanner.

My understanding is that the authors of this book, the legendary security podcasters "Pauldotcom", are going to offer a class, that sounds like a lot of fun.

If you are going to be installing wireless it is a good idea to read this book; a lot of the information applies regardless of what brand of equipment you select. And as for me, I don't think I will ever look at a Linksys router in the same way again; from now on I will be wondering just exactly what is going on beneath the hood.


1. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/12/11/overclocking-guide-part-1/
2. http://openwrt.org/
3. http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/article.php/3562391
4. http://pauldotcom.com/