Hacking is a natural need of many sentient beings. They pass along the thorny path of understanding the true essence of surrounding things, bent on destruction. Just look around: Atomic scientists split atoms, analysts split long molecules into lots of smaller ones, and mathematicians actively use decomposition. And not one of them deserves reproach!

Hacking is not the same thing as vandalism. Hacking is the demonstration of natural curiosity and desire to understand the surrounding world. Disassembled listings, machine commands, black screens of SoftIce that are reminders of the early days of MS-DOS—all these are interesting and captivating. Among them is the entire world of hidden mechanisms and protection code. Do not look for them on the maps; this world exists only in fragments of printouts, technical manuals automatically opening at the most interesting positions, and, of course, sleepless nights spent at the monitor.

This book is neither a manual on cracking nor a manual on antihacker protection. Such books are already available in abundance. Rather, this book contains the “travel notes” of a code digger. You’ll examine Intel’s compilers, look inside the protection mechanisms of commercial programs, and learn how the debugger works and how to work with it expertly. In general, if you are not so afraid that you immediately close this book and throw it away, you’ll learn many new and interesting facts.

About the Author

Casually-dressed young man (age 28) who doesn’t pay attention to the surrounding world or his own body, dwelling exclusively in the jungle of machine codes and maze of technical specifications. Unsociable. Leads the secluded life of a predator rodent  that practically never leaves his hole (unless it is to look at the stars). Has a luckless private life (and unlikely that it will become lucky in the future), so the only method of killing time from dusk until duskier is to be fully absorbed by work.

I’ve been obsessed by computers since childhood (or even earlier—unfortunately, I can’t recall). Mainly, I specialize in reverse engineering (disassembling), finding vulnerabilities (holes) in existing protection mechanisms, and developing my own protection systems. Nevertheless, computers are not my only and, perhaps, not my main passion. In addition to being concerned with the hardware and wandering in the jungle of the protection code, I am never far from the night sky and my telescopes. I read many books (and even write ones). Recently, I have been writing more than reading. The hacking motives of my creations are not simply luck. They are the result of natural curiosity in “what’s under the hood” of a computer and a desire to crack something using a crowbar or hammer (figuratively, or course). Is it possible to understand otherwise how this thing works?

If hackers are individuals obsessed by understanding the universe, then I am a hacker.

Protect your wireless systems from attack with this clear-cut guide on how to implement proven security methodologies

Effective security is the most important element now missing from most wireless networks. Vulnerabilities in these networks leave them open to eavesdropping, session highjacking, data alteration and manipulation, and an overall lack of privacy. This comprehensive book clearly shows you how to identify these vulnerabilities and protect yourself against them by building security into the network infrastructure and connected devices. Drawing on the latest research in the field, Vines offers a thorough examination of the fundamental concepts of security and basic computing technology. He first provides you with the necessary background on wireless and cellular technologies, looking at the various ways in which they are implemented. You'll then learn about a wide range of security methodologies and find out how to apply them to the wireless world. Finally, you'll confront the security challenges with wireless systems and discover all of the options available to protect your information.

A complete guide to current wireless technologies and standards, security risks, and proven security solutions, Wireless Security Essentials explores:
* Wireless data networking technologies and the wireless application protocol
* Wireless standards and technologies
* Cryptographic technologies and PKI
* Threats to personal electronic devices like Palm Wireless Handhelds, PocketPCs, Internet-enabled cell phones, and BlackBerrys
* WAP security
* Security monitoring and testing
* Hardware and software solutions

About the Author

RUSSELL DEAN VINES is founder and President of The RDV Group Inc., a New York City-based security consulting services firm. His company is active in detecting, preventing, and solving security vulnerabilities for clients in government, finance, and new media organizations. Vines is also a frequent speaker on security issues and coauthor of the bestselling book The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security (Wiley).

An essential overview of satellite communications from the organization that sets the international standards

Since their introduction in the mid-1960s, satellite communications have grown from a futuristic experiment into an integral part of today’s "wired world." Satellite communications are at the core of a global, automatically switched telephony network. Assembled by the International Telecommunication Union—the international organization that sets the standards for this rapidly growing industry—the Handbook on Satellite Communications, Third Edition brings together basic facts about satellite communications as related to the fixed-satellite service (FSS). It covers the main principles, technologies, and operation of equipment in a tutorial form.

Updated to include the latest technologies and information, the Third Edition provides both the standards and technical information needed to implement and interact with satellite communication systems, including:

• The components and basic characteristics of a satellite communication system

• Regulatory considerations and system planning

• SDH and ATM satellite transmissions

• Analog and digital baseband signal processing and multiplexing

• Carrier modulation techniques

• Geostationary and non-geostationary systems

• Interconnection of satellite and terrestrial networks

• LEOS satellite networks and other recent developments

As digital modulation and transmission replace analog techniques, and as satellites in non-geostationary and lower-altitude orbits open the way to new applications, satellite communications will continue to grow in use and importance. Everyone involved in the administration and operation of satellite communications will find this a crucial resource.

About the Author

THE INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION

The ITU Radiocommunication Sector specializes in facilitating international collaboration to ensure the rational, equitable, efficient and economical use of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits by holding World and Regional Radiocommunication Conferences to expand and adopt Radio Regulations and Regional Agreements covering the use of the radio-frequency spectrum; establishing ITU-R Recommendations, developed by ITU-R Study Groups, on the technical characteristics and operational procedures for radiocommunications services and systems; coordinating endeavors to eliminate harmful interference between radio stations of different countries; maintaining the Master International Frequency Register; and offering tools, information and seminars to assist national radio-frequency spectrum management.

Implement, operate, and use beta testing immediately with this hands-on guide to the best practices

Beta testing is a complex process that, when properly run, provides a wealth of diverse information. But when poorly executed, it delivers little or no data while wasting time and money. Written by a leading expert in the field, this book will help you reach the full potential that beta testing has to offer.

Michael Fine compiles the best practices to date so you can effectively bring beta testing into your company’s process to improve product quality. Using real-world case studies, this book begins by clearly explaining what a beta is and why you need one. Fine then explores the beta test procedure and walks through the best processes to use when implementing a test. He concludes by detailing the steps you should take after completing a test in order to take full advantage of the results.

With this book, you’ll gain a better understanding of what beta testing is, why every company needs a beta test program, and how to get the most from a test. Fine will help you:

• Understand all the steps involved in beta testing using real-world case studies
• Implement a beta test using best- known practices
• Produce better products based on the results of well-run beta tests
• Apply beta testing across many platforms and many technologies
• Improve on existing processes and identify critical issues

About the Author

MICHAEL R. FINE is Director of Client Services and a founder of Centercode, an application service provider focused on providing tools and services that enable businesses to improve their products through effective beta testing. He is the former beta test manager for 3Com Corporation.

"...provides a non-technical overview of contemporary telecommunications systems." (SciTech Book News, Vol. 26, No. 2, June 2002)

The up-to-date edition of the bestselling guide to the basics of telecommunications and digital technology

Understanding Telecommunications and Lightwave Systems presents a nontechnical treatment of how voice, video, and multimedia can simultaneously travel over today's evolving telecommunications systems. This updated Third Edition provides a comprehensive overview of the telecommunications field as well as a detailed introduction to the latest lightwave technology.

The author's examination of recent techniques and developing technologies in telecommunications includes:

• Third-generation cell phones with microbrowser capabilities
• Changes in the global PCS network
• Optical switching and transmission parameters
• Lightwave systems and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing
• A new chapter (Chapter 17: The Internet) that examines this multimedia structure and the network economy it has created
• Satellite communications, new transcontinental carriers, lightwave undersea systems, and other advances toward improving global communication

Understanding Telecommunications and Lightwave Systems is the perfect introduction for anyone whose work requires a fundamental understanding of current developments in telecommunications, as well as for students or inquiring readers who want an overview of telecommunications and the exciting technology of lightwave communications.

About the Author

JOHN G. NELLIST led the development and implementation of fiber optic technology into the British Columbia telephone network as General Transmission Engineering Manager at Telus (formerly BC Telecom). He was appointed overall coordinator for the first field trial of a fiber optic transmission system in 1978 and presented one of the first papers on an operating fiber optic system in 1979 at the International Fiber Optic Conference.

With more than forty years of telecommunications experience, John Nellist has published and presented numerous technical papers and articles on the subject. Currently a consultant at Sarita Enterprises, Ltd., Nellist has also coauthored two books with Elliott M. Gilbert, Telecommunications Wiring for Commercial Buildings and Understanding Modern Telecommunications and the Information Superhighway.

Twenty-five years ago, the high-tech business was small, computers were largely relegated to accounting, and the money major corporations spent on information technology barely made a dent in their overall budgets. Today that has all changed. High-tech businesses are some of the largest in the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average includes four technology companies whose total market capitalization exceeds $600 billion. Computers have moved out of the role of accounting to managing supply chains, tracking manufacturing processes, and managing orders globally. There are even multibillion dollar companies founded and dependent only on information technology, such as Yahoo! and eBay.

With the increased role of computing has come increased spending to the point that global corporations' IT spending is no longer a rounding error. Today, we can estimate that the total spent on IT exceeds $1 trillion dollars per year. More amazingly, 75% of that is used for managing existing systems, most of which is dominated by the cost to manage the complex software that has been built over the past 25 years. Where does this cost come from? The increased usage of computing also brings increased exposure. Corporate costs for managing the security of computing is increasing each year. Today, most companies run 24/7; with no weekends or days off, managing the availability of these systems is a greater and greater challenge. And increasing dependence on computing also means an increasing need to change the environments. Some have estimated the cost to upgrade an enterprise application at $1,000 per user.

The disadvantage of this large expenditure on the operation of existing systems is that, with more than 75% of the budget being spent here, only 25% of the budget can be spent on new innovations. Unfortunately, the cost to manage past sins increases each year, so in time the amount of money spent on anything new will vanish—an alarming prognosis for any high-tech company.

Software as a service—or, as we will refer to it, software on demand—is the next step in the software industry. This isn't because it's a cool idea, but because it fundamentally alters the economics of software. If the cost of software (to a software company) can be reduced by a factor of 10, the shift in the software industry is as fundamental as the advent of the Intel microprocessor was to the hardware industry.

This book is full of examples and challenges to this transformation. Traditional software companies, including Oracle, are making the change, and new software companies such as WebEx are leading the way for next-generation startups. Read on if you think this will change your business. If you're the CIO or CEO of a large, medium-size, or small company and a consumer of software, you need to understand how this shift can change the economics of your IT budget and allow you to free up capital and resource to invest in the future, not the past.

If you're the CEO of a software company, you need to understand how the software on demand model changes your business starting in support, reaching into how you develop software, and culminating in changes to your fundamental business models based on a new economy. Finally, if you're an investor in high technology, I'm sure you wish you had bought Intel back in 1978. Key companies, both new and old, are participating in the move to software on demand. It's important that, as investors, you understand who gets it and who's pretending. The debate is not whether this shift in the software business will happen, only the rate.

Hyper-V is Microsoft’s server virtualization technology built-in to Windows Server 2008.  Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is a System Center add-on that helps organizations better manage their virtual guest images, delegate administration and management, and even extract virtual images from existing physical and virtual servers.  This book, Hyper-V Unleashed, was written by authors Rand Morimoto and Jeff Guillet who have worked with Hyper-V and VMM/2008 for well over a year prior to the formal product release.  Dozens of organizations trusted Hyper-V enough to put it into full production environments before formal product release.

 

This book covers:

·         Assessment of the resource demands of existing physical servers

·         Analysis of the assessment data to determine the right size host servers to acquire

·         Architecture planning and design

·         Step-by-step hands-on assistance

·         Disaster recovery steps for recovering Exchange

 

About the Author

Rand Morimoto, Ph.D., MCSE, CISSP, has been in the computer industry for more than 30 years and has authored, co-authored, or been a contributing writer for dozens of bestselling books on Windows 2008, Exchange 2007, Security, BizTalk Server, and remote and mobile computing. Rand is the president of Convergent Computing, an IT consulting firm in the San Francisco Bay Area that was one of the key early adopter program partners with Microsoft implementing beta versions of Windows Server 2008 in production environments over 3 years before the product release. Rand has spoken at more than 50 conferences and conventions around the world in the past year on tips, tricks, and best practices on planning, migrating, and implementing Windows 2008 Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008.

 

Jeff Guillet, MCITP, MCSE, CISSP, has been in the computer industry for more than 25 years and has been a contributing writer and technical editor for several books on Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2007, and Exchange 2003. Jeff is a senior consultant for Convergent Computing and participates in many early adopter beta programs. Jeff holds Charter MCITP: Enterprise Administrator and MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator certifications for Windows Server 2008 and has maintained MCSE certifications since 1999. He maintains a popular technical blog at www.expta.com.

The law of proportion according to which the several colors are formed, even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation of them.
Plato

Despite Plato’s warning, this book is about one of the major unresolved issues in the field of color science, the efforts that have been made toward its resolution, and the techniques that can be used to address current technological problems. The issue is the prediction of the color appearance experienced by an observer when viewing stimuli in natural, complex settings. Useful solutions to this problem have impacts in a number of industries such as lighting, materials, and imaging. In lighting, color appearance models can be used to predict the color rendering properties of various light sources, allowing specification of quality rather than just efficiency. In materials fields (coatings, plastics, textiles, etc.), color appearance models can be used to specify tolerances across a wider variety of viewing conditions than is currently possible and to more accurately evaluate metamerism. The imaging industries have produced the biggest demand for accurate and practical color appearance models. The rapid growth in color imaging technology, particularly the desktop publishing market, has led to the emergence of color management systems. It is widely acknowledged that such systems require color appearance models to allow images originating in one medium and viewed in a particular environment to be acceptably reproduced in a second medium and viewed under different conditions. While the need for color appearance models is recognized, their development has been at the forefront of color science and largely confined to the discourse of academic journals and conferences. This book brings the fundamental issues and current solutions in the area of color appearance modeling together in a single place for those needing to solve practical problems or looking for background for ongoing research projects.

Includes coding examples and sample conversion programs!

Create VBA, VB.NET, and C# custom applications with this radical new interface

Are you ready to tackle RibbonX? This friendly, plain-English guide gives you the tips and techniques you need to design and implement Ribbon apps fast, as well as plenty of examples for working in VBA and Visual Studio®. You'll customize the Ribbon to meet your needs, create new elements, and even find solutions for pre-existing Office apps!

• Create an effective RibbonX design

• Write RibbonX apps

• Develop business applications for Office

• Work with Web services

• Convert existing toolbars and macros

About the Author

John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 74 books and over 300 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads-down programming. Some of his current books include a Windows power optimization book, a book on .NET security, and books on Amazon Web Services, Google Web Services, and eBay Web Services. His technical editing skills have helped over 52 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. John has provided technical editing services to both DataBased Advisor Magazine and Coast Compute magazines. He’s also contributed articles to magazines like CIO.com, DevSource, InformIT, Informant, DevX, SQL Server Professional, Visual C++ Developer, Hard Core Visual Basic, asp.netPRO, Software Test and Performance, and Visual Basic Developer.

"The book itself is a commendable achievement, and it deals with the security and software reliability theory in an integrated fashion with emphasis on practical applications to software engineering and information technology. It is an excellent and unique book and definitely a seminal contribution and first of its kind."

—— C. V. Ramamoorthy

Professor Emeritus, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California-Berkeley, and Senior Research Fellow, ICC Institute, The University of Texas-Austin, IEEE Life Fellow

Trustworthy Computing: Analytical and Quantitative Engineering Evaluation

presents an index-based, quantitative approach to advances in reliability and security engineering. Objective, metric-oriented, and data-driven, its goal is to establish metrics to quantify risk and mitigate risk through risk management. Based on the author's class-tested curriculum, it covers:

• Fundamentals of component and system reliability and a review of software reliability

• Software reliability modeling using effort-based and clustered failure data and stochastic comparative measures

• Quantitative modeling for security and privacy risk assessment

• Cost-effective stopping rules in software reliability testing

• Availability modeling using Sahinoglu-Libby (S-L) Probability Distribution

• Reliability block diagramming for Simple and Complex Embedded Systems

Complete with a CD-ROM containing case histories and projects that give readers hands-on experience, this is a great text for students in courses on security, reliability, and trustworthiness, as well as a reference for practicing software designers and developers, computer reliability and security specialists, and network administrators who work with data.

About the Author

Mehmet Sahinoglu, PhD, is Chair-Professor of the Computer Science Department at Troy University in Montgomery, Alabama. After teaching twenty years at his alma mater (BSEE) Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, he served as the founding dean and department chair in the College of Arts and Sciences at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Turkey. More recently, Dr. Sahinoglu taught at Purdue University, Indiana, and Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, before joining Troy University as the university's first Eminent Scholar in Computer Science.

ADVANCES IN DIGITAL FORENSICS IV

Edited by: Indrajit Ray and Sujeet Shenoi

Digital forensics deals with the acquisition, preservation, examination, analysis and presentation of electronic evidence. Networked computing, wireless communications and portable electronic devices have expanded the role of digital forensics beyond traditional computer crime investigations. Practically every crime now involves some aspect of digital evidence; digital forensics provides the techniques and tools to articulate this evidence. Digital forensics also has myriad intelligence applications. Furthermore, it has a vital role in information assurance -- investigations of security breaches yield valuable information that can be used to design more secure systems.

Advances in Digital Forensics IV describes original research results and innovative applications in the emerging discipline of digital forensics. In addition, it highlights some of the major technical and legal issues related to digital evidence and electronic crime investigations. The areas of coverage include:

- Themes and Issues

- Evidence Recovery

- Evidence Integrity

- Evidence Management

- Forensic Techniques

- Network Forensics

- Portable Electronic Device Forensics

- Event Data Recorder Forensics

- Novel Investigation Techniques

- Forensic Tools

This book is the fourth volume in the annual series produced by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 11.9 on Digital Forensics, an international community of scientists, engineers and practitioners dedicated to advancing the state of the art of research and practice in digital forensics. The book contains a selection of twenty-eight edited papers from the Fourth Annual IFIP WG 11.9 Conference on Digital Forensics, held at Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan in the spring of 2008.

Advances in Digital Forensics IV is an important resource for researchers, faculty members and graduate students, as well as for practitioners and individuals engaged in research and development efforts for the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

Indrajit Ray is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.

Sujeet Shenoi is the F.P. Walter Professor of Computer Science and a principal with the Center for Information Security at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.

Provides a practical introduction to artificial intelligence that is less mathematically rigorous than other books on the market. Appropriate for programmers looking for an overview of all facets of artificial intelligence.

[Shelving Category] Artificial Intelligence/Soft Computing

Artificial Intelligence is often perceived as being a highly complicated, even frightening subject in Computer Science. This view is compounded by books in this area being crowded with complex matrix algebra and differential equations - until now. This book, evolving from lectures given to students with little knowledge of calculus, assumes no prior programming experience and demonstrates that most of the underlying ideas in intelligent systems are, in reality, simple and straightforward. Are you looking for a genuinely lucid, introductory text for a course in A.I or Intelligent Systems Design? Perhaps you¿re a non-computer science professional looking for a self-study guide to the state-of-the art in knowledge based systems? Either way, you can¿t afford to ignore this book.

Covers:

·        Rule-based expert systems

·        Fuzzy expert systems

·        Frame-based expert systems

·        Artificial neural networks

·        Evolutionary computation

·        Hybrid intelligent systems

·        Knowledge engineering

·        Data mining

New to this edition:

·        New demonstration rule-based system, MEDIA ADVISOR

·        New section on genetic algorithms

·        Four new case studies

·        Completely updated to incorporate the latest developments in this fast-paced field.

Dr Michael Negnevitsky is a Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tasmania, Australia. The book has developed from lectures to undergraduates. Its material has also been extensively tested through short courses introduced at Otto-von-Guericke-Universit¿t Magdeburg, Institut Elektroantriebstechnik, Magdeburg, Germany, Hiroshima University, Japan and Boston University and Rochester Institute of Technology, USA

Educated as an electrical engineer, Dr Negnevitsky¿s many interests include artificial intelligence and soft computing. His research involves the development and application of intelligent systems in electrical engineering, process control and environmental engineering. He has authored and co-authored over 250 research publications including numerous journal articles, four patents for inventions and two books.