`If you're even thinking of doing any security engineering, you need to
read this book'
Bruce Schneier
`Even after two years on the
shelf, Security Engineering remains the most important security text published
in the last several years'
Information security Magazine
Wiley has finally
agreed to let me put my book online! You can now download it by
chapters:
The foreword, preface and other front matter
My goal in making the book freely available is twofold. First, I want to reach the widest possible audience, especially among poor students. Second, I am a pragmatic libertarian on free culture and free software issues; I think that many publishers (especially of music and software) are too defensive of copyright. I don't expect to lose money by making this book available for free: more people will read it, and those of you who find it useful will hopefully buy a copy. After all, a proper book is half the size and weight of 300-odd sheets of laser-printed paper in a ring binder. (My colleague David MacKay found that putting his book on coding theory online actually helped its sales. Book publishers are getting the message faster than the music or software folks.)
If you've already bought my book, you should look occasionally at the errata. There is a top-level errata page here, and additional, more detailed, pages of errata and new material for part 1, part 2, and part 3. I will update these from time to time. The errata have been applied to the online print files. These web pages also have some extra material.
See our blog for comments. There are also some reviews, and the book has been translated into Japanese and Chinese.
Return to Ross Anderson's home page