Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Book for Home and Small Business Users
Comment: This book is a really compact overview of computer security for non-technical users. But, at the same time, it's technical. Not too technical, but technical enough to walk the reader through setting up a home firewall, a secure network (wired or wireless), and anti-spyware to name just a few.
There's a lot of goodies in only 278 pages.
A lot of books that have come out lately on home computer security are either too light to be of value, or focus more on identity theft and fraud prevention. These are important topics, but Tony sticks to bread-and-butter technical measures home users need to understand.
There's real meat in here that goes into surprising detail that's easy to follow that I've haven't seen in other recent books. Tony does a good job of covering setting up Local Security policies on Windows machines, for example. This is something I've only seen in hardcore techie manuals that probably wouldn't normally be seen by most home users.
There's a great chapter on disaster recovery, how to follow security bulletins from Microsoft and apply patches regularly. And, for the daring home use, even a chapter on setting up Linux.
The case study for a small business is also well done and can provide valuable insight for a home user setting up their own network.
Essential Computer Security is complete yet simple and achieves the goal of its title.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best book on the subject in years
Comment: If you have ever wished that your company's IT staff had more time to
help you understand why you should not open email from people you do
not know or how an IP address relates to the DNS, this book is for
you. If you have ever wanted a personal network security consultant
always on-call to explain the workings of daily network security
issues, this book will meet that need at a fraction of a percentage of
the cost.
The author sketches the general framework of a both wired and wireless
networks. He then discusses in detail the risks associated with each
application that uses those networks -- email, web browser, etc. In
each case, his explanations are well-worded such that, by the end of
any section, the reader feels like they grok the philosophy of
security and has always known what the author just taught them. He
does not obfuscate the content of the book in unexplained acronyms and
unnecessary details but keeps his task of empowering the average user
always in view.
Aside from covering the basics of network dynamics and applications
used by the average internet user, the book offers two other boons for
small and medium business users. For those who are unsure what a
computer firewall is and how to deploy one effectively, the author
offers an in-depth discussion of the subject via a case study. In
addition, for those who are frustrated with Windows security lapses,
another chapter offers a comprehensive discussion of alternatives to
Windows applications and offers counsel on how to migrate to Linux.
Unlike other books, the author does not talk down to the reader but
shares his extensive knowledge as a co-labourer in the reader's
efforts. I wish I could have given this book to users when I worked
for a major university -- but then I would have been out of a job!
Simply put: This is one of the best computer security books for users
that I have seen for several years.
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