Ankit Fadia - "Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking" 32% Plagiarized Sat Jan 1 01:08:44 CST 2011
Ankit Fadia's career is built on the cornerstone of him writing a 'hacking' book when he was 14, which he used as a means of establishing his expertise on the subject of computer security. Since the book 'Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking' (ISBN 0333 93679 5) was published in 2001, Fadia has not been able to keep sales figures straight.
.. the author, ankit fadia, who at the tender age of 14 wrote this book, is the youngest author for macmillan india limited in their 110 years of history.
At 15, his book on Ethical Hacking made him the youngest author to be published by Macmillan India.
Even his parents and siblings weren't aware how tech-savvy Ankit was till he surprised everyone by writing his first book on ethical hacking at 14.
By fourteen years he published his first book titled The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking which became an instant bestseller worldwide, sold 3 million copies and was translated into 11 languages.
The book was clearly written by a 14 year old and did not enjoy the benefit of an editor or technical editor (even as of the 6th reprinting). Countless misspellings, technical errors, repeated material and a high level of disorganization make the book difficult to use even as a reference. The book attempts to dismiss some of this in a "Publisher's Note" saying "Many words in this book have been spelt in the manner that the author is comfortable with and is retained in respect to the inexhaustible spirit of enterprise and adventure of the generation X." While words such as 'kewl' are understood in this context, it does not cover words like 'bascially', 'ubehackers' or 'stricted' [sic].
The book is comprised of many articles written by Fadia for his web site, and later used with minor edits for the book. Throughout the book, there are over a dozen cases of Fadia using material that he did not write. In some cases, he quietly removes headers or text that would give attribution. In others, he blatantly claims credit for writing something he did not. In addition, almost 130 pages at the end of the book are blatantly taken from other sources, sometimes without attribution or honoring explicit copyright statements. This flagrant plagiarism advertised as original work launched his career and now leads to him receiving five-figure speaking engagements. The Plagiarism
The following table details the portions of the book that were taken from other sources, making up 32.2% of the material. Information is included to distinguish not only plagiarized material, but also what was done in an attempt to obscure the original source (e.g., removing text or credit). This shows willful infringement of copyright and inexcusable plagiarism.
I pretty much got a used copy of this for free, and I'm a bit surprised it was published to begin with. The purpose of checking this out is mainly insight into the subject matter - after all it was published 10 years ago.
So in a nutshell, there's no need for this book to be 752 pages, as many of the pages are unnecessary, drawn out reference tables or code which could have been put on the web for download.
As another reviewer described, this is pretty much a script kiddie memoir. Don't expect to understand much here.
I bought this book back when I was in college, in 2004 or 2005. I read a few chapters then I stopped because lack of time and... because I felt very disappointed. The book was copyrighted in 2003, yet it used Win95/98 when talking about Windows hacking. Seriously? When Win2k and XP were in their prime time? The abuse of the word kewl by the author did not help with my impression either.
Now, 5-6 years later, I just picked it out of my shelf and read another chapter. My rage came back, and now I am very close to conclude that this book is a complete waste of time. It also appears that most of the Amazon customers agree.
I will try to read a bit more just for general information. I don't know how much further I will read this book, but I do know that 1) I will not keep this book 2) I will NOT donate this book to the library, for the good of the general public 3) I would burn the book if it weren't so environmental unfriendly.
This book is a very good example of plagiarism. I found text of many topics very similar to that in different sites. And on one hand this book had really basics like batch file processing and on another 3+ pages of uncommented assembly code for what I still couldn't figure out.
But yes it was an acceptable compilation of scattered information on internet that a young wannabe hacker like me found initially interesting and later only to find that I had read much of the material already on Internet.
Although it's quite a fabulous writeup from a very young author, yet it's completely over hyped. If you are planning to buy this book so that you can hack your girl-friend's account to check whether she is cheating on you then forget it. For that you better use scripts available on the internet. This boom gives you a clear overview of what hacking is and what you can and cannot do with hacking.
Someone who want to touch the tip of hacking can start with this. Most of the stuffs are copied from Internet. Many hacking methods written in the book might be outdated and does not work anymore. Still one can start who has little to no knowledge in hacking.
One of the best book for the beginners in ethical hacking who are willing to get started into the world of hacking but not sure about the path to start, this book is best start for them