Rating: 

This is the second edition of this book, which expands considerably on the first. The book is divided into a few main topics; programming, networking, and encryption. The first book did an excellent job of describing the fundamental foundations of hacking techniques.

What made the book stand out was how the information was presented. The author does not talk down to the reader but makes all effort to explain each topic clearly. For each topic, the source code used is printed and explained step-by-step. In the second edition, the examples are improved. The examples are more detailed and include information such as common implementation mistakes such as not setting programs suid or not using required complier options. The author even goes so far as to show the error messages that occur if the user were to forget common items.

The program section is expanded somewhat but the biggest difference was in the network section. These chapters were updated with information on web servers et al. and further explanations of basic IP and TCP packet exploits, from which higher level exploits are built.

The author is obviously an accomplished expert on computer systems but does not let ego enter the text. This makes the book easy to read and learn from. The book includes a CD with a Linux OS and the source code used in the examples.

This book is a must have for security admins, sys admins, and computer science students.