Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box makes reading hacker literature fun, and you learn a lot about computer networks while you read since the scenarios presented are all realistic down to the screenshots of the tools that are used. I’ve tried to read books about hacking before, but they were always soooooo dry. There was a lot of information about more than you could ever want to know, but there wasn’t a lot of examples of how that information was actually used. I think that’s one of the biggest problems with computer books: they have tons of details, but aren’t very good at making the big picture clear. I’ve read about nmap before, but I couldn’t get passed the myriad of command line switches. It’s nice to see a few examples of how it’s actually used along with examples for dozens of other tools on probably half a dozen platforms.
I used to be under the impression that using a switch on your network prevented people on the switch from sniffing your traffic, but now I know better. There’s little that’s safe from people with enough patience, knowledge and creativity.
I’ve since read the next two books in the series, How to Own the Continent and How to Own the Identity and enjoyed them as well. There’s even more of a cohesive storyline in the the next two books that brings together a lot of the characters from the first book plus some.