Poorly written, and full of factual errors.

As an expert in TCP/IP (I implemented whole TCP/IP protocol suites for the embedded market among other things), I opened Mr. Tiller's book with interest, as I am in the process of implementing an IpSec VPN feature on a particular product.
First of all I spent time reading those parts of the book on which I DID have significant knowledge, just to see how the author deals with those subjects (ARP, RARP, NAT, L2TP). The explanations were not only poorly written but many were also false or misleading.
For example:
- The author attempts to explain NAT translation without showing port translation, something that would make no sense.
- The author explains RARP without referring to DHCP or to why would someone send a RARP query.
- The author has factual errors about L2TP, in fact many of the descriptions relate to another protocol, PPTP, not to L2TP.
- The explanation of why TTL is not covered by a pseudo header is so confusing, instead of the plain simple explanation that you are not able to use a field that changes along the way.
The few parts I read related to my needs, IpSec, looked pretty weak. I'll keep searching for an IpSec book worth reading.

Other Reviews

• Poorly written, and full of factual errors.
• Comment from the author
• very poorly written
• Good overview, Bad editing