Silence on the Wire
by Michal Zalewski · first published 2005
76% recommend24% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Readable full-stack tour of unconventional security topics: passive fingerprinting, timing attacks, information leakage, and LED snooping. Suits readers curious about concepts rather than practical how-tos.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"In Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks, Zalewski shares his expertise and experience to explain how computers and networks work, how information is processed and delivered, and what security threats lurk in the shadows. No humdrum technical white paper or how-to manual for protecting one's network, this book is truly unlike anything else out there. It's a narrative that explores a variety of unique, uncommon, and often quite elegant security challenges that defy classification and eschew the traditional attacker-victim model." "This book will be
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If you don't know who this is, he wrote one of my favourite books on web (browser) security: "The Tangled Web" [1]. Another lesser known book by him is also worth a read: "Silence on the Wire" that takes a look at the full information security stack from the keyboard you type on, to the wires the data transits, to the internet protocols, etc [2] and looking at how each stage exposes/protects…
on “Michał Zalewski, Director Information Security Engineering, leaves Google” ↗Interesting idea. Try get people who are considering selling exploits to get a little money from Google instead. Michal Zalewski (lcamtuf) is highly respected in the security world - The Tangled Web and Silence on the Wire are excellent reads. It would be very surprising if this didn't lead to a few new BIND and ISC DHCPD bugs coming out in the near future.
on “Going beyond vulnerability rewards” ↗Zalewski was the reason I felt unaccomplished in 2005, when I read his "Silence on the wire" and noted he wasn't much older than I am. His separate guide on CNC is great[1]. He also has a great intro to electronics[2]. His first book is an amazing survey of totally passive attacks[3]. His second…
on “My adventures in CNC robotics” ↗Silence on the Wire is a fantastic book that looks at unconventional and underdiscussed aspects of security: interesting timing attacks, subtle information leakage, fingerprinting, etc. It's by Michal Zalewski, who is perhaps…
on “Humble Book Bundle: Hacking Presented by No Starch Press” ↗Interesting, I had the exact same reaction as you. Bought the book (along with Michal Zalewski's Silence on the Wire), got less than a chapter in, and put it down in frustration. I've since wondered if I should go back and give it another chance. Sounds like no? For what it's worth, I really enjoyed Zalewski's book.…
on “Kevin Mitnick Now Selling Zero-Day Exploits” ↗You should read "Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks" by Michal Zalewski to expand your universe on things you should be afraid pal. Interesting book that can really burst your bubble on how…
on “Key Reinstallation Attacks – Breaking WPA2 by Forcing Nonce Reuse” ↗"Silence on the wire" [1] hypothesizes finding the state of systems from the outside world - or based on the lack of information. Found it entertaining to read and this article somehow reminded me about it. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/82994.Silence_on_the_Wir...
on “Extracting the private key from a TREZOR with an oscilloscope (2015)” ↗"Silence on the Wire" by Michal Zalewski
on “Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf?” ↗Zalewski's "Silence On The Wire" (which is totally fantastic in its own right) graphs a few PRNGs and discusses their issues. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1593270461
on “PHP's silly PRNG” ↗An FYI, if you guys care about more passive attacks that let you deduce the source of NAT'ed packets and other tricks, check out "Silence on the Wire" by Zaelwski. Awesome read.
on “Critical: Vulnerabilities in Windows TCP/IP Could Allow Remote Code Execution” ↗Michal Zalewski discusses "Parasitic Storage" in his book "Silence on the wire" (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kOQ9m38q_t8C&lpg=PP1&...). It's actually a pretty good read for interesting stuff that you don't often think about.
on “Network latency as data storage” ↗Another book that takes this "soup to nuts" approach to the pillar of computer abstractions is Zalewski's "Silence on the Wire". It's mostly focused on computer security, but it does an excellent job of peeling back software abstractions and showing how innocent decisions like blinkenlights and link-following web spiders can…
on “The Book That Every Programmer Should Read” ↗I'm a few chapters into Silence on the Wire and enjoying it. Zalewski is brilliant. It's very theoretical however. I'd only recommend it if your motive for reading it is pure interest rather than a desire to pick up practical skills that are immediately…
on “Humble Book Bundle: Hacking Presented by No Starch Press” ↗This strongly reminds me that Silence on the wire by Michal Zalewski, really is an excellent read.
on “A TCP weakness in Linux systems allows network traffic hijack” ↗This is actually a very classical example of "side-channel". If you like this kind of things, I suggest you read (at least the beginning of) Silence on the wire, by Michal Zalewski.
on “Advanced Deanonymization Attacks” ↗