Print Book $29.95
By Wallace Wang
May 2006
Publisher: No Starch Press
Pages: 376
ISBN 10: 1-59327-105-0 |
ISBN 13: 9781593271053
(Average of 1 Customer Reviews)
This offbeat, non-technical book examines what hackers do, how they do it, and how readers can protect themselves. Informative, irreverent, and entertaining, the completely revised fourth edition of Steal This Computer Book contains new chapters discussing the hacker mentality, lock picking, exploiting P2P file sharing networks, and how people manipulate search engines and pop-up ads. Includes a CD with hundreds of megabytes of hacking and security-related programs that tie-in to each chapter in the book.
Full Description
National bestseller with over 175,000 copies sold!
If you thought hacking was just about mischief-makers hunched over computers in the basement, think again. As seasoned author Wallace Wang explains, hacking can also mean questioning the status quo, looking for your own truths, and never accepting at face value anything authorities say or do.
The completely revised fourth edition of this offbeat, non-technical book examines what hackers do, how they do it, and how you can protect yourself. Written in the same informative, irreverent, and entertaining style that made the first three editions hugely successful, Steal This Computer Book 4.0 will expand your mind and raise your eyebrows. New chapters discuss the hacker mentality, social engineering and lock picking, exploiting P2P file-sharing networks, and how people manipulate search engines and pop-up ads to obtain and use personal information. Wang also takes issue with the media for "hacking" the news and presenting the public with self-serving stories of questionable accuracy. Inside, you'll discover:
Featured customer reviews
Very entertaining, relatively non-technical, somewhat controversial, January 30 2007
This book was fun to read, even though the author does appear in some cases to support ethically questionable activities. The information presented is quite good and thourough although this is not a technical manual. There is no definitive code listings or in-depth technical discussions on the internal workings of hacking programs. The CD included does have some older code from the first virii et al. The parts I enjoyed the most were the areas describing the history of hacking and the mentality of the hacker. The author does make a good distinction between the hobbiest, curious, and the criminal. The one drawback is the one-sided political commentary that sneaks into certain areas of the book.
Media reviews
"Perhaps the best feature of Steal This Computer Book is that it is as entertaining as it is informative, mostly because it doesn’t restrict itself to technical details, the "zeroes and ones" of computing...Flossing your teeth will never be fun, but by listening to good music or a recorded book you can perhaps get some satisfaction as you cram your fingers into your mouth. In much the same manner, by choosing the unconventional Steal This Computer Book, you can brush up on your computer security knowledge without feeling that flossing seems pleasant in comparison."
-- Ken Rogers, Greater Cleveland PC Users Group
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