B O O K S - Mod Mania, Security Warrior

Joshua De Herrera, Mod Mania with Yoshi, TechTV

Tired of that beige box? Macs too pseudy? Lose body parts in the quest for originality and LAN-party oneupmanship. One of the contributors did.

Whether you're drawn to sleek and functional or the I-did-it-coz-I-could school of design, there are plenty of interesting projects here to inspire you to spend months making your next computer.

Cyrus Peikari & Anton Chuvakin, Security Warrior, O'Reilly

If you read and understand this book as well as the one we reviewed last month, Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, you'll be a lethal weapon on whichever side of the fence you're on. This book has more emphasis on the defence side, and is on the whole, a little easier to get into if this subject isn't your grand obsession to start with.

Chapter headings include Assembly Language, Windows and Linux reverse engineering, overflow attacks, TCP/IP, Social engineering, reconnaissance, fingerprinting, a section on attacks, and a section on defences.

We're all security warriors now so we'd better get to it.