Author Michal Zalewski has long been known and respected in the hacking and security communities for his intelligence, curiosity and creativity, and this book is truly unlike anything else out there. 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 a fascinating narrative that explores a variety of unique, uncommon and often quite elegant security challenges that defy classification and eschew the traditional attacker-victim model.

• The source
  • i can hear you typing
  • extra efforts never go unnoticed
  • ten heads of the hydra
  • working for the common good
• Safe harbor
  • blinkenlights
  • echoes of the past
  • secure in switched networks
  • us versus them
• Out in the wild
  • foreign accent
  • advanced sheep-counting strategies
  • in recognition of anomalies
  • stack data leaks
  • smoke and mirrors
  • client identification: papers, please!
  • the benefits of being a victim
• The big picture
  • parasitic computing, or how pennies add up
  • topology of the network
  • watching the void
  • closing words