Bill's Book Reviews:

Secrets & Lies - by Bruce Schneier

Johnathan Wiley Press - ISBN: 0-471-25311-1 US $29..99

- one of the best Computer & Information Security books to hit the streets in Years

this is the ONE BOOK you need to give to your MANAGER, for them to really understand the intricacies of this subject.

Bruce Schneier has learned a lesson - he is, by trade, a crypto-analyst, and several years ago wrote a book basically declaring that all security issues could be solved by using cyptography. After the passage of several years his pie-in-the-sky claims in his first book all fell by the way-side, and he fully admits that here - and further goes on to explain in excurciating detail - (though easily understood by both comp-u-geeks & gurettes as well as the "common man" the ins & outs of almost all the popular myths & realities of today's computing & information security environments.

Bruce covers the many products (like internet-scanners, Operating Systems, and applications), as well as the differences between cyrptography and things such as SSL, TLS, PPTP, IPsec, and a plethora of others. He also outlines why & how many of today's security problems are not a question of technology but a question of people. Additionally he explains many of the problems we face are not going to get any better, faster, until some things change in both marketing of products as well as in the politcial & sociological environments in which both individuals & corporations buy security products...

last updated: 6 November 2000