| 'Computer
Security for the Home and Small Office' by Thomas C. Greene |
 |
| 'Computer
Security for the Home and Small Office' by Thomas C. Greene |
|
This book is a real curate's egg - a curious mixture of clear practical advice for Windows and Linux users, and hardline Open Source advocacy. The first couple of chapters are absolutely excellent stuff on computer security explained in a non-geek fashion. Just the section on how to harden your Windows computer by turning off unnecessary services is probably worth the price of the book. Greene goes through the services one by one, explaining in what circumstances you might need to leave them on, and gives detailed instructions for turning them off. The instructions given are for XP, but I used them on my Win2K setup with no problem. Other chapters give useful insights into the sort of social engineering used by hackers and an introduction to basic network monitoring tools. After this things start to break down a bit. It wasn't that anything was wrong, or even badly written, but the next chapter is a very paranoid piece on not leaving unsecured traces of your data around ('data hygiene' as Green terms it). The following chapter (chapter 6) is a hardline piece of Open Source advocacy. This links back to the introduction where Greene has a section on installing the Mozilla browser. The final part of the book is called 'Trust Nothing, Fear Nothing' and is an expose of myths about the Internet. It's excellent journalism, but it feels odd stuck in as a chapter at the end of this book. Some of the book's shortcomings are possibly explained by the fact that Greene is an associate editor of The Register (one of the best, if not the best, online publications around, in my opinion). Greene is an excellent journalist - I regularly read his pieces - and in this book he is mixing hard-headed advice with investigative journalism. Unfortunately, he doesn't quite bring it off, and as a result the book feels uncoordinated and unsure of what its mission is. Recommended, but with reservations.
Computer Security for the Home and Small Office |
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