InfoMagic Standards 1993 July/Disc.iso/inet/isoc/isocnews/issue1_4/073.01a

Internet Message Format | 1993-02-08 | 8.5 KB

Subject: n-1-4-073.01

Book Reviews
by A.M. Rutkowski ([e-mail])

Books on internetworking and the Internet seem to have finally
achieved a real mass market appeal.

In the Washington DC area, a local bookstore is actually using
advertisements on a popular local radio station to sell the
Internet Companion.  (Of course, the book's foreward by now Vice
President Gore has great appeal in a political centric
environment like Washington.)  A few months ago at Interop, the
bookseller's fair resembled Macy's Department Store the day after
Christmas with tens of thousands of books disappearing in 72
hours.  Ed Kroll's Whole Earth Internet is apparently now in it's
third printing in the space of three months.  Clearly the
Internet world is approaching mass public appeal, and the
continuing diverse assortment of good books should maintain that
dynamic.

In contrast to several popular entry-level Internet books
reviewed in the previous issue of ISOC News, the following ones
are more technical and specialized in nature.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Internet System Handbook by Daniel C. Lynch & Marshall T. Rose.
Publisher Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., Reading Mass.,
USA tel: [phone], tel: [phone] (USA), Email:
<[e-mail]>.  Published October 1992. 822 pages;
hardcover.  Price: US$ XX.00

This is THE definitive technical treatise on the Internet system
and its technologies.

Dan Lynch was one of the original "Internet gang." Several years
ago he realized the enormous commercial potential of
internetworking technologies and created the innovative Interop
tradeshow-seminars that now rank among the largest in the entire
telecommunication industry.

At a special author's party for this book at the October 1992
Interop, Dan in a short speech filled with reveries, told how he
as a young engineering student always admired the classic
handbooks in the communications field; and that now that
internetworking technologies have become mature and pervasive, he
felt obliged to put together the classic Internet handbook.  He
did so by teaming with co-editor Rose - one of the most prolific
and innovative young geniuses in the information industry - and
calling  upon what Dan calls 23 close friends who created the
internetworking technology world.  Each person prepared a chapter
of the handbook based on his or her particular expertise.

The book is divided into four basic parts: Introduction,
Technologies, Infrastructure and Directions.  appropriately
enough, Dan begins the handbook with a brief chapter on "how it
all began."  Perhaps because these are the people who literally
created internetworking and the Internet, most of the chapters
are very comprehensive and clear.  Numerous references appear at
the end of most chapters, and the Handbook itself ends with a
very extensive annotated bibliography.  Between the beginning and
the end is the most complete collection of technical and
operational overview of the Internet found anywhere.

Despite its relatively expansive scope, however, the Handbook
remains fairly focussed on general "nuts and bolts" and provides
little information on how individuals and organizations of all
kinds are using internetworking technologies or the Internet,
beyond Charles Catlett's chapter on evolution and future
directions.  Perhaps this could be the stuff of an additional
handbook.

Nonetheless, Dan's stated purpose of helping people
understand the Internet as "a living and evolving system" to
allow them to become a part of that evolutionary process, is
admirably met by this Handbook.  It is destined to remain the
the definitive handbook in the field.

---------------------------------------------------------------

TCP/IP Network Administration by Craig Hunt.  Publisher: O'Reilly
& Associates, Inc., 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA
95472, USA, Tel: [phone], tel: [phone] (USA) fax: +1
707 829 0104, email: <[e-mail]>.  Published August 1992.  493
pages; paperback.  Price US$

Part of an extensive suite of new O'Reilly books on
internetworking technologies, Craig Hunt's TCP/IP Network
Administration is probably the best single Unix TCP/IP system
administrator's handbook in print.

It is a literal "how to do it" that takes you through the basics,
then walks step-by-step through getting addresses, registering
names, configuring kernels and interfaces, configuring routing,
DNS, network applications, mail, troubleshooting, and network
security.  Hunt even describes variances among different Unix
systems.

This book is a "must" for anyone setting up or running a Unix-
based TCP/IP network.
---------------------------------------------------------------

DNS and Bind in a Nutshell by Paul Albitz & Cricket Liu.
Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.  Published Oct 1992.
408 pages; paperback.  Price US$

Another O'Reilly book for the TCP/IP system administrator,
this one focusses in great detail on one particular critical
network service - the Domain Name System - and its
implementation on Unix systems using the Berkeley Internet
Name Domain code.  It provides everything an administrator
would need to know about running an Internet domain.

The Nutshell begins with a "how does it work?" followed by
"where do I start?" and then proceeds through BIND setup,
EMail MX records, configuring hosts, maintenance and growth
of domains, debugging and troubleshooting.  If you are
setting up an Internet domain, don't proceed without this
book.

------------------------------------------------------------

MH & xmh by Jerry Peek.  Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates,
Inc.  Published Sept 1992.  718 pages; paperback.  Price US$

The Rand Corp. Mail Handler is one of the most popular front
ends for Unix-based mail systems; which is also implemented
in X-windows as xmh.  They are both in the public domain and
have been tweeked to perfection by such legends as Marshall
T. Rose.

If you are running a Unix system, MH or xmh are definitely
good choices for a number of reasons - especially power and
flexibility.  And, if you use MH or xmh, Peek's book
provides innumerable valuable insights into easily
extracting all that power and flexibility.  The book
provides copious detail and examples for using every feature
(including the undocumented ones), together with many sample
scripts to provide such valuable capabilities as
automatically sorting incoming mail into different reading
folders by subject matter - including getting rid of junk
mail.  The last feature alone is definitely worth the price
of the book.
------------------------------------------------------------

The Law of Electronic Commerce, EDI, Fax and E-Mail:
technology, proof and liability by Benjamin Wright
<[e-mail]>. publisher: Little, Brown and
Company, tel: [phone], tel: [phone] (U.S.),
fax: [phone]. Publication: 1991.  464 pages +
current supplement; hard cover. Price: $95

The legal community lags years behind internetworking
technology and its implementation - which is probably good.
On the other hand, as internets and supported applications
become material in legal disputes, a body of law will
emerge.  This has already occurred with respect to EDI, fax,
EFT, videotext, and EMail, and this is what Wright's book is
about.  Although a bit pricy, it does include a current
supplement.

In typical legal treatise fashion, the author also provides
copious citations to judicial decisions or statutory
provisions.  This legal research alone justifies the price.

The primary purpose of this book is to give readers a feel
for what is significant in business settings as to risk,
proof, required record keeping and controls, industry codes
and liability.  In business and legal settings, these are
critically important considerations.

There are also little nuggets tucked into this book that
should provide food for thought for those interested in
future legal issues.  For example, Wright includes a section
on "internetworking and remote plaintiffs."  Rather than
providing definitive answers, you are walked though various
alternative analogies and legal analyses, and even provided
useful insights on desired evolutionary directions of the
law.  Another section deals with issues on the EDI horizon.

While I don't expect the next IETF to start a legal issues
working group, it is probably wise to consider whether it
wouldn't be advantageous for a knowledgeable intra-Internet
community begin dealing with these issues.  It's obvious
that a nascent body of internetworking is already emerging.