Bibliography for the Linux FreeS/WAN project

For extensive bibliographic links, see the Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies

See our web links document for material available online.

Carlisle Adams and Steve LLoyd Understanding Public Key Infrastructure
Macmillan 1999 ISBN 1-57870-166-x
Both authors work for PKI vendor Entrust.
Albitz, Liu & Loukides DNS & BIND 3rd edition
O'Reilly 1998 ISBN 1-56592-512-2
The standard reference on the Domain Name Service and Berkeley Internet Name Daemon.
Bamford The Puzzle Palace, A report on NSA, Americas's most Secret Agency
Houghton Mifflin 1982 ISBN 0-395-31286-8
Chapman, Zwicky & Russell Building Internet Firewalls
O'Reilly 1995 ISBN 1-56592-124-0
Cheswick and Bellovin Firewalls and Internet Security: Repelling the Wily Hacker
Addison-Wesley 1994 ISBN 0201633574
A fine book on firewalls in particular and security in general from two of AT&T's system adminstrators. Bellovin has also done a number of papers on IPSEC and co-authored a paper on a large FreeS/WAN application.
Comer Internetworking with TCP/IP
Prentice Hall If you need to deal with the details of the network protocols, read either this series or the Stevens and Wright series before you start reading the RFCs.
Doraswamy and Harkins IP Sec: The New Security Standard for the Internet, Intranets and Virtual Private Networks
Prentice Hall 1999 ISBN: 0130118982
Electronic Frontier Foundation Cracking DES: Secrets of Encryption Research, Wiretap Politics and Chip Design
O'Reilly 1998 ISBN 1-56592-520-3
To conclusively demonstrate that DES is inadequate for continued use, the EFF built a machine for just over $200,000 that breaks DES encryption in under five days on average, under nine in the worst case.

The book provides details of their design and, perhaps even more important, discusses why they felt the project was necessary. Recommended for anyone interested in any of the three topics mentioned in the subtitle.

See also the EFF page on this project and our document on DES insecurity.

Martin Freiss Protecting Networks with SATAN
O'Reilly 1998 ISBN 1-56592-425-8
translated from a 1996 work in German
SATAN is a Security Administrator's Tool for Analysing Networks. This book is a tutorial in its use.
Gaidosch and KunzingerA Guide to Virtual Private Networks
Prentice Hall 1999 ISBN: 0130839647
Simson Garfinkel Database Nation: the death of privacy in the 21st century
O'Reilly 2000 ISBN 1-56592-653-6
A thoughtful and rather scary book.
Simson Garfinkel PGP: Pretty Good Privacy
O'Reilly 1995 ISBN 1-56592-098-8
An excellent introduction and user manual for the PGP email-encryption package. PGP is a good package with a complex and poorly-designed user interface. This book or one like it is a must for anyone who has to use it at length.

The book covers using PGP in Unix, PC and Macintosh environments, plus considerable background material on both the technical and political issues around cryptography. The only shortcoming is that it does not cover recent developments such as PGP 5 and Open PGP.

Garfinkel & Spafford Practical Unix Security
O'Reilly 1996 ISBN 1-56592-148-8
A standard reference.
Spafford's web page has an excellent collection of crypto and security links.
David Kahn The Codebreakers: the Comprehensive History of Secret Communications from Ancient Times to the Internet
second edition Scribner 1996 ISBN 0684831309
A history of codes and code-breaking from ancient Egypt to the 20th century. Well-written and exhaustively researched. Highly recommended, even though it does not have much on computer cryptography.
David Kahn Seizing the Enigma, The Race to Break the German U-Boat codes, 1939-1943
Houghton Mifflin 1991 ISBN 0-395-42739-8
Olaf Kirch Linux Network Administrator's Guide
O'Reilly 1995 ISBN 1-56592-087-2
Now becoming somewhat dated in places, but still a good introductory book and general reference.
Pete Lashin Big Book of IPSEC RFCs
Morgan Kaufmann 2000 ISBN: 0-12-455839-9
Matyas, Anderson et al. The Global Trust Register
Northgate Consultants Ltd 1998 ISBN: 0953239705
hard cover edition due April 1999 MIT Press ISBN 0262511053
From their web page:
This book is a register of the fingerprints of the world's most important public keys; it implements a top-level certification authority (CA) using paper and ink rather than in an electronic system.
Menezies, van Oorschot and Vanstone Handbook of Applied Cryptography
CRC Press 1997
ISBN 0-8493-8523-7
An excellent reference. Read Schneier before tackling this.
Gerhard Mourani Get Acquainted with Linux Security and Optimization System
Available online as a PDF file. Does not cover IPSEC.
Michael Padlipsky Elements of Networking Style
Prentice-Hall 1985
ISBN 0-13-268111-0 or 0-13-268129-3
Probably the funniest technical book ever written, this is a vicious but well-reasoned attack on the OSI "seven layer model" and all that went with it. Several chapters of it are also available as RFCs 871 to 875.
John S. Quarterman The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide
Digital Press 1990 ISBN 155558-033-5
Prentice-Hall ISBN 0-13-565607-9
The best general treatment of computer-mediated communication we have seen. It naturally has much to say about the Internet, but also covers UUCP, Fidonet and so on.
David Ranch Securing Linux Step by Step
SANS Institute, 1999
SANS is a respected organisation, this guide is part of a well-known series, and Ranch has previously written the useful Trinity OS guide to securing Linux, so my guess would be this is a pretty good book. I haven't read it yet, so I'm not certain. It can be ordered online from SANS.
Bruce Schneier Applied Cryptography, Second Edition
John Wiley & Sons, 1996
ISBN 0-471-12845-7 hardcover
ISBN 0-471-11709-9 paperback
A standard reference on computer cryptography. For more recent essays, see the author's company's web site.
Scott, Wolfe and Irwin Virtual Private Networks
2nd edition, O'Reilly 1999 ISBN: 1-56592-529-7
This is the only O'Reilly book, out of a dozen I own, that I'm disappointed with. It deals mainly with building VPNs with various proprietary tools -- PPTP, SSH, Cisco PIX, ... -- and touches only lightly on IPSEC-based approaches.

That said, it appears to deal competently with what it does cover and it has readable explanations of many basic VPN and security concepts. It may be exactly what some readers require, even if I find the emphasis unfortunate.

Kurt Seifried Linux Administrator's Security Guide
Available online from Security Portal. It has fairly extensive coverage of IPSEC.
Richard E Smith Internet Cryptography
ISBN 0-201-92480-3, Addison Wesley, 1997
See the book's home page
Stevens and Wright TCP/IP Illustrated
Addison-Wesley If you need to deal with the details of the network protocols, read either this series or the Comer series before you start reading the RFCs.
Rubini Linux Device Drivers
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 1998 ISBN 1-56592-292-1
Robert Zeigler Linux Firewalls
Newriders Publishing, 2000 ISBN 0-7537-0900-9
Click below to go to: