Forwarded from: "Rob, grandpa of Ryan, Trevor, Devon & Hannah" <rsladeat_private> BKIPSECS.RVW 20021001 [Or you could let C4I.org get the credit from Amazon. - WK :) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072127570/c4iorg ] "IPSec: Securing VPNs", Carlton Davis, 2001, 0-07-212757-0, U$49.99/C$79.95/UK#36.99 %A Carlton Davis carltonat_private %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 2001 %G 0-07-212757-0 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O U$49.99/C$79.95/UK#36.99 800-565-5758 fax: 905-430-5020 %O http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072127570/robsladesinterne %P 404 p. %T "IPSec: Securing VPNs" Chapter one is an overview of TCP/IP. The material is generally good, but does demonstrate a possible weakness of the book: we are provided with way too much information about a number of areas that are not relevant to IPSec. A similar overabundance of detail (and math) describes symmetric cryptography, in chapter two. Oddly, given the level of particulars in other areas, there is no analysis of the weakness of double DES (Data Encryption Standard). Operational specifics of the various AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) candidates are also included. The mathematical basis of asymmetric cryptography, in chapter three, is not explained as well as symmetric is. In dealing with hashes and message authentication codes, chapter four has lots of math and almost no other discussion. Chapter five provides extensive details about X.509 attribute fields, for digital certificates, and also has a bit of material on PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and key recovery. The fields of LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) are outlined in chapter six. Chapter seven finally talks, very briefly, about IPSec architecture, repeating (from chapter one) the specifics of the IP header, and mentioning some of the components of IPSec. Chapters eight, nine, and ten concentrate of the header structure of AH (Authentication Header), ESP (Encapsulating Security Payload), and ISAKMP (Internet Security Association Key Management Protocol) packets, albeit chapter ten also covers a bit of the handshaking process. There is very little discussion of strengths and weaknesses. There are lots of details related to IKE (Internet Key Exchange) in chapter eleven, but surprisingly little information about what it does or how it works. The header structure and options for the compression function, IPComp, are given in chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen is supposed to talk about implementation, but has a fairly generic example of a VPN and some screen shots from a commercial product. Overall, the book contains lots of technical details, but very little in the way of explanation, discussion, or analysis. You would probably learn just as much about IPSec by reading the RFCs themselves. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2002 BKIPSECS.RVW 20021001 -- ====================== rsladeat_private rsladeat_private sladeat_private p1at_private Find book info victoria.tc.ca/techrev/ or sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade/ Upcoming (ISC)^2 CISSP CBK review seminars (+1-888-333-4458): December 16, 2002 December 20, 2002 San Francisco, CA February 10, 2003 February 14, 2003 St. Louis, MO March 31, 2003 April 4, 2003 Indianapolis, IN - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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