A Complete Hacker's Handbook: Everything You need to know about Hacking in the Age of the Web [Paperback]

A Complete Hacker's Handbook is a technical book, not a journalistic account of hacker activities and the implications of their work. Dr K, the founder of the Phreak/Hack-United Kingdom e-zine (P/H-UK), touches on the issues, but concerns himself mostly with practical information for people who want to investigate computer systems. If Unix, TCP/IP and cgi scripts don't turn you on, this is unlikely to be for you.

If Dr K had written "How to Rob a Bank", he would almost definitely have found himself in trouble. But here he actually creates a persuasive case for indulging in harmless investigation of computer systems. His list of "The Ethics of Hacking" makes sense. For example one of his principles is that "Corporations and government cannot be trusted to use computer technology for the benefit of ordinary people". That rings true. Today's hacker may be tomorrow's champion of freedom. But he does hint at the seamier side, like the chapter about going through people's bins to get an idea of their computer systems.

Computer viruses do cause many problems for people, and manipulation of the telephone system is likely to be a criminal activity, but it is perfectly reasonable to want to learn about how these things work. Certainly the Hacker's Handbook helps you understand the importance of good computer security and gives a little glamour to the process of learning about how the Internet works. --Brian Jenner

All the different areas of hacking are discussed, along with their implications, what is at stake, ways to protect against potential damage, and how to try them out for yourself.

Reader Reviews - Some Comments from the Author
Hi all - DrK here.

Just a quick word. Miss H Acker is quite right to pull me up on the PGP thing - I'll change it if the book gets reprinted. The missing "n" in "Zimmermann" is just poor proof reading on my part - I apologise for that!

On the 4 layer network model - I was describing TCP/IP in particular and not the more general OSI model because I didn't want to confuse newbie readers with too many conflicting models. TCP/IP layers do not map precisely onto the OSI model and this could cause a *lot* of confusion for readers. Also because of the emphasis on the Internet I used TCP/IP as a reference for other network protocols such as IPX or NetBIOS/NetBEUI.

I'd like to thank everyone who bothered to review the book and to wish them a good time legally hacking *their own* systems.

DrK. completehackershandbook@hotmail.com