Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I have 24 network jacks in my house. I don't want to install another network jack ever. Wireless is the answer from this point. The biggest problem with wireless is evident: security.
This is one of numerous books on wireless security. Fortunately, it's a well done book that is not meant to be read by rocket scientists. You know those kinds of books: written by ego-centric techie-geeks who pad their books with technical jargon and useless scientific theory that only people at MIT could understand. Instead, this book is relatively easy to understand as long as you have some knowledge on wireless technology (beyond the fact that there are no wires involved).
One chapter that I found to be very interesting covers the concept of war driving, which is the equivalent of driving around to pick up wireless networks in a neighborhood. It also covers how war drivers leave chalk identification markers for other war drivers to know that a wireless network has been detected.
The book also adequately covers the various types of authentication and encryption that can be used help to secure a wireless network. Once again, the very technical details about how the packets are designed and how the handshaking takes place tends to be a bit dry to those without much technical experience.
Using Windows 2000 Server as the example, the book goes through all of the steps necessary (with a large number of screen shots) to implement a VPN as well as set up an authentication and certificate server for enterprises. Fortunately, the home user is not forgotten. An entire chapter is dedicated to securing and managing a home wireless network; however, all of the home security methods that are covered in this book are Linux-based. Of course, if you're concerned about security, why are you thinking of using Windows in the first place?
The appendices have a lot of background information on radio frequency and antennae types. But the really geeky appendix is how to make a functional wireless antenna out of a Pringles potato chip can.
Overall, this is a good book to have. Obviously, computer technology being what it is means that the book will be obsolete in relatively short order. However, the fact that this book doesn't adhere to the mindless Windows centricity of most books of this kind also helps to give it that little boost of extra value.
I also like this book because it does not have the "I have a master degree so I'm going to speak like I'm addressing only brilliant people so as to impress you and add pages to the book to make it seem more important than it is" attitude. Yes, you should to have a grasp of some of the concepts behind networking protocols to understand this; but the majority of the book is not a difficult read.
If you're thinking of implementing a wireless network, this is a good book to have at your side.
Click Here to see more reviews about: How Secure is Your Wireless Network Safeguarding Your Wi-Fi LAN
Get 31% OFF
0 comments:
Post a Comment