A looming anniversary, and a special offer

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/blog/post/a_looming_anniversary_and_a_special_offer/

[This was posted on Twitter Thursday by Gene Spafford - @TheRealSpaf
and I figured I should share this with the list. Please check out the
above link for complete details, history, and the special offer!  - WK]


Sunday, December 06, 2015 by spaf

It may seem odd to consider June 2016 as January approaches, but I try to think 
ahead. And June 2016 is a milestone anniversary of sorts. So, I will start with 
some history, and then an offer to get something special and make a charitable 
donation at the same time.


In June of 1991, the first edition of Practical Unix Security was published by 
O’Reilly. That means that June 2016 is the 25th anniversary of the publication 
of the book. How time flies!

Read the history and think of participating in the special offer to help us 
celebrate the 25th anniversary of something significant!


History

In summer of 1990, Dan Farmer wrote the COPS scanner under my supervision. That 
toolset embodied a fair amount of domain expertise in Unix that I had 
accumulated in prior years, augmented with items that Dan found in his 
research. It generated a fair amount of “buzz” because it exposed issues that 
many people didn’t know and/or understand about Unix security. With the growth 
of Unix deployment (BSD, AT&T, Sun Microsystems, Sequent, Pyramid, HP, DEC, et 
al) there were many sites adopting Unix for the first time, and therefore many 
people without the requisite sysadmin and security skills. I thus started 
getting a great deal of encouragement to write a book on the topic.

I consulted with some peers and investigated the deals offered by various 
publishers, and settled on O’Reilly Books as my first contact. I was using 
their Nutshell handbooks and liked those books a great deal: I appreciated 
their approach to getting good information in the hands of readers at a 
reasonable price. Tim O’Reilly is now known for his progressive views on 
publishing and pricing, but was still a niche publisher back then.

[...]


Special Offer

If you have someone (maybe yourself) who you’d like to provide with a special 
gift, here’s an offer of one that includes a donation to two worthwhile 
non-profit organizations. (This is in the spirit of my recent bow tie auction 
for charity.) You can make a difference as well as get something special!

Over the years, Simson, Alan, and I have often been asked to autograph copies 
of the book. We know there is some continuing interest in this (I as asked 
again, last week). Furthermore, the 25th anniversary seems like a milestone 
worth noting with something special. Therefore, we are making this offer.

For a contribution where everything after expenses will go to two worthwhile, 
non-profit organizations, you will get (at least) an autographed copy of an 
edition of Practical Unix & Internet Security!! Depending on the amount you 
include, I may throw in some extras.

[...]

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