Customer Reviews

Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I was amazed when I finished scanning this book today. Quite frankly, I can't imagine why it was ever published! Aside from the fact that it was published this year (2002), and aside from the fact that the author appears to have used a Windows 95 machine to do his tinkering (I won't even give the author the respect of using the word "hacking"), this book is riddled with misinformation, inconsistencies, and uncommented source code (which incidentally only compiles, according to the author, on a version of *nix that very few people use). Any hobbyist with more than one year of experience knows AT LEAST what's covered in this book, and they probably don't even realize it! This book doesn't cover ANY of the new operating systems, doesn't take into account ANY basic security precautions that have been in use for a couple years now, and does the reader a disservice by trying to explain (poorly) what "hacker" and "cracker" means (clearly the author was trying to impress his friends with his knowledge of jargon). There are MANY more useful tomes on the market; don't waste your money on this book! The single most useful piece of information this book contains is a single page where the URLs to SART and (I believe) CERT can be found!

This book is basically a word for word copy from freely avaliable online documents and other books. The author fails to mention the documents that he uses as sources for his factual information. The worst part is, some of the sources the author used were unreliable themselves. Talking about libnet like it is a program just shows how inexperienced the author is in the subject he is writing about. How could one possibly write a technical book about something they don't know much about. As for the ethical part, there is hardly anything ethical about breaking into other systems. If you want to know how the hackers really get in, get hacking exposed. Hacking Exposed pulls no punches on describing how it is actually done. Spend your money on better things.

This book is appalling. I have the Indian version and it is sloopily put together as well as dated. In addition, it is hardly ethical in any sense of the word when the author suggests that you use your ISP to hack.

In addition, I have found script references in the book that are not written by the author and yet he doesn't identify this fact. He leaves them as if he wrote them. Further some chapters are nothing more than just a cut and paste from existing websites that are not the author's work.

If I was the publisher, I would be looking more deeply into this author's credibility. If you are serious about security, get a book like ... If you just want to be a script kiddie, this will do you fine.

This book is awful. There are typos everywhere and some of the paths in the registry that he refers to are incorrect. After reading the book for only one day, I have returned it. Most of the information is available on the Internet with little searching. Also, as Microsoft is no longer supporting Windows 95, the author should look for a more current operating system. This book it is sloopily put together as well as dated.

This book is a waste of your hard earned money, because if you need scripts that don't work and doesn't help you at all in hacking or protecting yourself from a cracker, you can just get millions of those from the Internet for free. You don't have to pay a 14 year old kid to compile it and give it to you for US$49!

I bought this book because it had a very interesting title. I regret my decision of buying this book as there is nothing in it that can be used and it's taking up the space in my bookshelf. Maybe, I will throw this book or give it to someone (some people those who never say no to free things).

You don't have to pay US$ 49 for a book that has nothing but freely available scripts copied and pasted from the Internet.

As rightly mentioned in one of the reviews here, it's a waste of money, ink, paper, and time. You will end up throwing this book in a bin with learning only one thing how to be a bit smarter before buying a book that has an interesting title.

WHAT A WASTE!

I read a couple of other hacking books, like Hacking Exposed and Hackers Guide. When reading this book I noticed it looks a whole lot like the guides to harmless hacking, which are available on the web for free. ...Don't be surprised when you're reading a chapter and suddenly the author gives you some "sample code" which turns out to be a program of about 12 pages, what was he thinking? That people are gonna retype it all? Why not just distribute the source over the internet. It also contains lots of typo's and technical mistakes.
But most important, the information in this book doesn't take you an inch further if you've read a couple of texts on the web, unless you really want to know how you can change your windows startup logo.
Also what bothers me, the books should be about ethical hacking, but the author discusses all kinds of destructive things, things that can only be used to create havoc, at his website he even has a tutorial on how to deface websites (not that it would help anyone because it is hopelessly outdated)
If you really want to learn how to check a website's security, and don't care about changing the way your windows 95 looks, maybe you should read Hacking Exposed instead. The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking isn't worth the money by far, just get some texts of the web for free and you'll have the same information, 90% of the time even better written.

I picked this book up thinking it would be a good read,I was mistaken. Unless you are a complete newbie or wannabe hacker you will find this a total waste of time,and an even greater waste of money. He doesn't cover half the stuff any true (white hat)hacker should know.I would avoid buying this book unless you find it in a bargain bin, and even then I'd be hesitant about buying it.

I bought this book thinking that I might learn something new about how to protect my computer. After reading the first little bit I realized I already knew all of it because it was all already on the internet. Pretty much this guy got all of the (basic) tutorials for hacking on the internet and compiled them into a book. Also, almost nothing in this book will work if you have minor network security. All the people that gave this a 5 star rating are not very smart. They are impressed because some tough 1337 hacker told them how to crack into systems wreck havoc. Yeah, right. Save the money and read tutorials on the internet. Do not buy.

When i read this book, all i saw was borrowed information. There was nothing original, only things taken off of online forums, and books written by men with doctorites. This Kid is only a Script Kiddie, nothing more. Who knows, though, maybe he'll be the next Kevin Mitnick?

Most of the information in this book is well documented on the Internet. Save your money! If you can't resist buying this book, please buy a used one. This book is definitely for beginners advanced users can pass this one up.