Network Uptime

NOW AVAILABLE: Secrets of Network Cartography

I've always wanted to write a book, and now I have. After months of work, hundreds of nmap scans, megabytes of trace files, and search-after-search through the nmap source code, I can now announce the publication of Secrets of Network Cartography: A Comprehensive Guide to nmap!

Instead of going through traditional publishing methods, I'm making my own rules as I go along. The content of this book is completely free. Every chapter of this book is online and available for anyone to read. The book is also licensed through Creative Commons, much like the rest of NetworkUptime.com.

Of course, I also have to support NetworkUptime.com, of which "free" pays very little. So, I'm offering an alternative to this web-based version of Secrets of Network Cartography. If you would like the 200-page version of this book in Adobe Acrobat format, I'm offering this digital version of the book for $20US. This premium e-book edition contains no advertising, and it makes an excellent reference guide for both nmap beginners and nmap power-users. A few sample pages of the book can be found here.

Now that I can look back on the entire book, I'm extremely pleased at what it has become. It wouldn't have been possible without these folks:

* I'd like to thank my wife, Judy, for being patient when the "mad scientist" was hoveled in his lab working on this tome. An understanding wife, lack of sleep, and plenty of Guinness can do wonders for a technical publication.

* Fyodor, thank you for writing such an amazing piece of software. I hope this book convinces a few of the fence-straddlers to jump into nmap and make their network a safer place.

* Chris Pirillo has taken the idea of technical publishing and raised the bar about twenty-bazillion times. He's always coming up with new ideas, and I can't wait to see what he does next over at Lockergnome. My interest in book writing was piqued a few years ago when he wrote his email publishing guide.

* The proverbial straw was laid upon my back by Wil Wheaton. Through the events in his blog life, he convinced me to shut my pie-hole and write this thing already. There are very few people on the Internets who put it out there like he does, and his attitude is infectious. In a good way.

Enjoy the book!

Posted by james_messer at June 14, 2005 07:16 AM