Newb Books?

[JustaNewb420]

I know very little about coding, other than a little experience with never winter nights coding. I was told its something like C++, but basically all I ever did was take pieces of other peoples code and put it to gather or edit it a little. Anyway, If you guys could recommend any good books for learning about web site code that would be awesome!

Mainly a list of the kinds of code used for websites would be awesome, I know there is like html, php, and some others i have seen. Once i know what to look for i can find it, lmao.

[msbachman]

Search through the forums for things like this; this topic's been covered many a time.

You mentioned doing the challenges, if I were you, I'd do those, read up on the forums, use google, and then maybe order/download some books for topics that pique your interest.

and from how your question is worded, it's basically unanswerable.

Check my comment here and you can even make off with some free stuff.

[JustaNewb420]

and from how your question is worded, it's basically unanswerable.

Ha, Yeah. I just looked at!

[OnlyHuman]

I'm a pretty big fan of O'Reilly's stuff, especially when it comes to learning, but even more so now. They somehow find a magic mixture of subject matter that covers everything but doesn't get poluted with useless details. Their Learning series is extremely well designed too. ~>This book<~ alone will get you through most of the basic, all of the javascript, a significant number of the extbasic, and a couple of the realistic challenges here. Plus, that whole animal cover thing is sort of legendary in hacker folklore.

No Starch Press also makes some remarkable stuff. I highly recommend HLA High Level Assembler. It's incredible. You might want to wait a while for that one though. It's not really introductory material for anything other than low level programming. But you know, learn at your own pace and all that.

Once you have a strong grasp on fundamental concepts, McGraw Hill Osbourne's books aren't half bad either. Most of them cover things in exhausting detail, even going so far as to detail language specifications. And, when you';re ready for them, there's also the Morgan Kaufman or Charles River's Media series of books. Computer Science is all those guys write about, same as O'Reilly, but those two names have been used as college textbooks in the field, by more than a few universities.

[msbachman]

+1 for the suggestion of O'Reilly. Be sure to consider getting one of their subscriptions if you don't have a decent library/bookstore in your area.

Saved me one hell of a bunch of money on schoolbooks, that's for sure. The last time I checked their rates were in the 20$/month range. Given that you can (and should) highlight portions of particular note for future reference, the ease of doing this online combined with their selection makes for a pretty good investment.

[JustaNewb420]

Thanks a lot, just started reading hacking exposed. That O'reilly site looks awesome, maybe if they see me buy a few books charter will stop sending me "Christmas cards".

[OnlyHuman]

Oh yeah. Hacking Exposed is a pretty great series too. I've got an old one of those books lying around my house somewhere. Way outdated as far as operating systems are concerned, but all the fundamentals are still rock solid. The whole Anatomy of an Attack philosophy and all that. Good stuff. You might also check out, Hacking the Art of Exploitation. A little on the advanced side, and pretty dense as far as mathematics are concerned, but it strives to explain all the subjects at a very low level.

[insomaniacal]

Oh yeah. Hacking Exposed is a pretty great series too. I've got an old one of those books lying around my house somewhere. Way outdated as far as operating systems are concerned, but all the fundamentals are still rock solid. The whole Anatomy of an Attack philosophy and all that. Good stuff. You might also check out, Hacking the Art of Exploitation. A little on the advanced side, and pretty dense as far as mathematics are concerned, but it strives to explain all the subjects at a very low level.

I've always been kinda skeptical about "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation", simply because I've bought and read "The Art of Deception", and although it was a fun read, it seemed broad. I guess I shouldn't judge it based solely on that, but it sorta turned me off from reading it.

[OnlyHuman]

I don't know if those two are part of the same "The Art of" series. I know that The Art of Deception was done by Kevin Mitnick, and I think he did a few others as well like The Art of Intrusion. But this Art of Exploitation book was written by Jon Erickson. It does cover a lot of topics though, and admittedly maybe not as thoroughly as it could have, so I guess it is fairly broad in that sense. But, I personally like it. There's source code for everything. Things like TCP Hijacking, shellcode, MiTM attacks, writing your own password crackers (dictionary attacks, bruteforce, and the rainbow table variety), IP Spoofing and several encryption algorithms (hence the dense mathematics). I wouldn't call it THE goto guide for any one particular subject, but the source code sells it for me.

[msbachman]

*Swings in from chandelier

Good evening. Want to READ but have no MONEY? No problem!