.NET Security and Cryptography
Author(s): Peter Thorsteinson, G. Gnana Arun Ganesh
Published: 2003, ISBN 0-131-00851-X, 496 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Here are the list of few reviews for my book .NET Security and Cryptography!!!!!!!
Review 1: Denver Visual Studio User Group™
Reviewed: December, 2003
Reviewer: Sujan Turlapaty
I enjoyed reviewing this book on .NET security and cryptography.
This book provides a smooth flow of the concepts beginning with two chapters of introduction and fundamental concepts of cryptography techniques. It is interesting to know that .NET supported so many techniques from the RAS, Triple DES to the latest XML, Web services security. The authors provide interesting scenarios and analogies of various techniques all through out the book.
In conclusion, the book is worth buying for above intermediate level .NET developers looking for a tutorial on .NET security and cryptography.
For more Details: http://www.denvervisualstudio.net/Reviews/Books2003/Book12152003.htm
Review 2: Scott Forbes (scottfo@microsoft.com) the Security and Privacy compliance manager in Microsoft’s Lawand Corporate Affairs group.
A .NET Gold Mine
For the .NET developer, this book is a gold mine of information. Multiple screen shots, example code, tables of commands, and block diagrams showing everything from a typical Web service architecture to the Code access security policy (Caspol) command-line options simply illustrate otherwise dense and unwieldy topics. The book provides numerous links to external sources to help readers clarify more.
.NET Security and Cryptography is a timely and straightforward technical resource for developers needing a better practical understanding of security within the .NET platform.
For more Details:
Download in PDF Format
Download in HTML Format
Review 3: Book Review: Implement Security and Cryptography by David Mack
This Book is Well Worth the Money.
.NET Security and Cryptography by Peter Thorsteinson and G. Gnana Arun Ganesh does an excellent job of laying down the foundation for .NET security features and showing you how to use them properly. The authors discuss numerous topics, including hashing, encryption, decryption, the .NET security model, and ASP.NET.
Overall, this book is well worth the money. It reads nicely, and the topics are covered in a logical fashion. This book is not for the novice programmer; it's intended to be a tutorial for someone with decent experience writing code. This book could pay for itself in the time you save using the examples provided.
Describes complex topics in a clear and concise manner; good coding examples.
For more Details:
http://www.fawcette.com/vsm/2004_01/online/mack_2/
Review 4: Book Review by Sudhakar Sadasivuni, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual C#
My overall rating is: Gold. Just go and grab one.
Well I can't stop writing a review on this book even thought I read only few chapters.
I found this book as very different to read because, right from the first chapter, it made me think like a hacker which is very unlikely of my mindset as a developer. But as this book's preface denotes an old proverb "Think like a fish, if you wanna catch it", the authors of this book tried their level best to implement the same wherever it is possible. Thanks Guys.
The coolest part of this book is its practical approach towards the problems in security. You will find detailed explanations and code examples or graphical representations wherever you need of them. This approach gives a relief to the code-N-test developers. Most of the topics are covered with code and graphical representation just as it was taught by some professor in any university.
For more Details:
http://weblogs.asp.net/ssadasivuni/archive/2004/10/14/242136.aspx
Review 5: Book Review by Anand Narayanaswamy, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Visual C#
Authors have made a great effort to present the complicated material in a very lucid manner
I got a nice chance to review a recently released .NET Security book and I thoroughly enjoyed the Job. At the outset, I found that this book is basically intended for Intermediate-Advanced developers who have a good working knowledge of .NET and ASP.NET. The authors have made a great effort to present the complicated material in a very lucid manner.
The book covers XML and ASP.NET Security with plenty of source codes and also provides a comprehensive explanation about Web Services Security with special references to Visual Studio .NET. The source codes included on the book are well commented and doesn’t deserve any special explanations. The authors have provided a comprehensive appendix about all the additional resources (Books, Newsgroups, and Websites) which are available for learning further about .NET Security. I must say that Appendix E on Exploring Web Services is very useful and well organized.
For more Details:
http://aspalliance.com/articleViewer.aspx?aId=225&vId=1&pId\
Review 6: Book Review by Anand M (.NET Architect, MVP)
And the authors make no pretence of this being a normal run of the mill book. They are very specific it is a practical guide to writing secure code and cryptography.
Well the book is quite exhaustive and covers all you can think of in the subject area. They cover everything that you will need to know if you are working with encryption of any kind in .NET.
For more Details:
http://www.dotnetindia.com/2004/09/book_review_net.html
Review 7: Andrew Allentuck , Monday, September 22, 2003
Authors Thornsteinson, a C++, Java, C#, .NET and Visual Basic .NET expert, and Ganesh, a .NET consultant, have created a code-rich guide to making the new world of .NET secure from the bad guys.
For more Details:
http://www.globetechnology.com/books/013100851X.html
Windows application programming interfaces (API) are dynamic link libraries (DLLs) that are part of the Windows operating system. The .NET framework has wrapped major segment of the Win32 API into managed code. But still there are few remaining portion of unmanaged part that you can make use of that functionality using the platform invoke service.
You have to be aware the following things about calling Windows APIs from managed code:
1. Windows APIs are part of unmanaged world.
2. Windows APIs doesn’t have built-in type libraries and the data types used in managed code is entirely different.
3. Windows API’s are not COM Objects.
4. To make use of the Windows API functionalities, you have to make use of Platform invoke (PInvoke), which enables managed code to call the unmanaged functionality provided by Windows DLL’s.
5. The Platform Invoke service offers a method to call functions that are exported from an unmanaged DLL. The most distinctive use of PInvoke is to allow .NET components to interact with the Win32 API. PInvoke is also used to access functions exports defined in custom DLLs.
6. In behind the scenes the Platform Invoke will locate the DLL contain the function, load the DLL into memory and locating the address of the function in memory and invokes an exported function and marshals its arguments.
For more info check here: Consuming Unmanaged DLL Functions
Check my article on COM Interop: 2. Less Complex (if you know the definition and usage of PInvoke signatures!). Make use of these functions, which are tricky to do in managed code.
Disadvantage:
1. If you don’t know the exact PInvoke signature, you are in trouble; it will take lot of time! I suggest visiting http://www.pinvoke.net before you try anything.
2. Win API’s are merciless when things go wrong. If you make any error, you’ll possibly corrupt memory.
3. More PInvoke calls - Performance is an issue, due to the data marshaling.
XBOX - Virtual Green Gaming World! 
Just now I have played the XBOX game HALO with my friends.
Wait!!!!
What is XBOX? The Xbox video game console is Microsoft's future-generation video game system that delivers new and unforeseen gameplay experiences.
Key Features – First time features in the Console Gaming industry! 1. An Intel 733MHz processor, the most commanding CPU console.
2. It has an internal hard drive, so you can store a lot of game information.
3. Rich compelling graphics performance than any other console with the help of an NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU)
4. Multiplayer Gaming facility with four game controller ports.
5. An Ethernet port for rich, fast-action online gaming via a broadband connection
6. You can also feel the real vibration!
7. Rich Stylish Look
8. More than 5000 Games!
Check the website
My favorite game is Halo 
Well, this is my first blog in http://weblogs.asp.net/.
I started my blogging @ Mar 14, 2003 03:23 PM in InformIT!!!!
You can see my first blog entries here!!! (Three blogs - First Day - Good start indeed right?J)
1. Web Services Enhancements for Microsoft .NET
2. ASP.NET Sample Applications : Starter Kits
3. Interoperability between Web Services Enhancements 1.0 for ASP.NET and Java
Then after a year, I started another one named: www.mvpblog.com\arun , where I blog about .NET, XML Web Services, MUGH (Microsoft User Group Hyderabad), about my book and XBOX.
Now in this blog site, I plan to concentrate on XML Web Services and XBOX.
First XML Web Services:
Well, I wet my hand on XML Web Services is in the beginning of the year 2001, while I was working as an Author for the company Object Innovations (where I got molded with the help of my educator – Robert J Oberg).
Then I started my first book on XML Web Services. Even though it didn’t get published, I delved deep into XML Web Services due to this opportunity. I wrote one Course Module in XML Web Services for Object Innovations and an Appendix chapter on my book .NET Security and Cryptography.
I got Microsoft MVP award in XML Web Services for the year 2003. This makes me to concentrate more on XML Web Services and Indigo ("Indigo" is a set of .NET technologies for building and running connected systems – Longhorn).
Second XBOX:
Basically I adore playing computer games from my childhood. Around December 2003, I started playing XBOX (Halo). I can’t remember my first day experience in XBOX. In the first day, I lost all the games badly. But in that night itself I played the entire single player game and finished the Halo campaign (Of course that is Friday night, so the next entire Saturday I was in sleep. J).
Right now I am one of the best players in Halo XBOX and I would like to share the secret with the world through my blog. That’s why I started this blog. J
You can see my first blog in XBOX here!
http://www.mvpblog.com/arun/2004/06/xbox-virtual-green-gaming-world-just.html#comments
From today onwards you can see some useful info/tips in XML Web Services and XBOX.