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Goodness knows, a book on 802.11 (Wi-Fi) network security is timely and relevent. Never before in my memory has such a blatantly insecure technology been deployed so rapidly and so widely with so little apparent thought to the risks and consequences - with the exception, perhaps, of Microsoft Windows. Unfortunately, 802.11 Security delivers little in the way of practical information that will be useful to the average reader.
802.11 Security begins with about 30 pages of generic information about wireless technology and definitions of different types of attacks (man in the middle, denial of service, etc.). Part two is composed of chapters on configuring various types of network clients. Much of the guidance is related to firewalls, monitoring audit logs, use of static ARP, and disabling unnecessary services -- which is good practice generally, but hardly specific to wireless networking. Additionally, the preponderance of the material is directed toward users of FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and LINUX -- Macintosh OS X is covered in only 11 pages, and Microsoft Windows in only three.
The third and fourth sections of the book describe how to set up access points and gateways for FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and LINUX. Only in the penultimate chapter (14) does 802.11 Security finally get around to mentioning the fundamental problems of wireless authentication and encryption, and again the practical information is limited to FreeBSD and LINUX. The enormous administrative and logistical issues of running a safe and secure wireless network with Windows and Macintosh users are simply ignored. The only robust commercial, vendor-supported solution for 802.11 authentication and encryption that you can go out and buy today for use on a corporate network, Cisco's implementation of LEAP, is not mentioned at all.
On a cost-per-page basis, this book is already well into the high end of the bell-shaped curve. If you excempt the chapters that are of interest only to the academic community and the hard-core desktop users of "free" *NIX derivatives and clones, virtually nothing of value remains. The least O'Reilly could do in the interests of its customers would be to retitle this book as "Wireless Networking for BSD and LINUX" to protect unwary purchasers.
-- Ray Duncan
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