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It covers a wide variety of topics and gives some good detail into each one without focusing on one topic more than it should. This book is a great guide hacking your WRT54G.
These were some things that took me a bit longer to research on my own and what I found required me to make several leaps of faith. (Anyone want a fried WRTSL54GS for cheap).
The book is good at showing you how to take what is out there and apply it to what you have. I appreciated the work Larry and Paul put into making this less of an issue.I'd love to see information on writing software for these devices in the future.
I enjoyed the book quite a bit and wish it had been released a few months earlier for a project I was working on. The frustrating part is when you make a mistake and have to go buy more parts.
However, I'm starting to dig into developing applications for this platform and piecing things together off of the web can be a bit tedious. I was happy to see clear examples and pictures on building JTAG cables, GPIO points, and other pieces of hardware.
The fun part of hacking hardware is that you have something to hold when you are done.
There is a discussion about the OpenWrt team, without them, this would never be possible.It was a real eyeopener to learn how much people have done with the WRT54G, there are a number of choices in firmware, even semi-commercial choices such as Talisman which allows you to establish VPNs, hotspots, mesh and even SIP VoIP. If you are going to be installing wireless it is a good idea to read this book, a lot of the information applies regardless of what brand of equipment you select. I think the most important contribution this book will make is to help people understand it is possible to change those innocuous Linksys boxes. I don't personally plan to try to hardware hack my Linksys router tonight after finishing reading the book, but it is on the list. The biggest surprise for me was the use of a WRT54G ( with an adapter ) as a bluetooth scanner.My understanding is that the authors are going to offer a class, that sounds like a lot of fun. There is a discussion about overcloking the router to make the processor run faster. It was dangerous then and it still is today.
readers are cautioned this can get you into trouble, I know I ended up sending my FM pirate radio system to a missionary group in Africa because it was just too tempting and in an urban area the FCC will eventually get you. U.S.
In the book we learn the parts of a Linksys router; to be truthful, I had never thought about that. There are even several methods for increasing the radio output and or antenna modifications.
After all, they are everywhere. This book in extensively researched, we learn how to set up DHCP, SAMBA even X Windows.
And as for me, I don't think I will ever look at a Linksys router in the same way ever again, from now on I will be wondering just exactly what is going on beneath the hood. Heavens knows, I have three or four sitting in the equipment closet from before we upgraded my home office to professional equipment.
Talk about a blast from the past, brings back the old 8086/8088 days.
In their defense though I acknowledge that at the time of print the OpenWRT "Kamikaze" stable version was finally released. I would have given this book a 5 star rating but it unfortunately covers too much info about using the OpenWRT "White Russian" firmware instead of the new NVRAM replacement firmware called OpenWRT "Kamikaze". But anyone needing to know all about the previous OpenWRT "White Russian" or the other optional firmware upgrades will definitely not be disappointed.I highly recommend buying this book anyway and also recommend their related website "[.]." for more valuable info about these awesome little routers. This is a great book for anyone interested in knowing all about the WRT54G series routers and how to hack them. The authors Paul and Larry from the popular "PaulDotCom Security Weekly" podcast did a great job explaining the inner workings of the router and also have some great tips on how to hack the firmware and hardware.
Often times, they would tell you to do something one way, then contradict themselves later on in the chapter or go off on tangents, making the instruction somewhat hard to follow. However, the one beef I have with this book is it's written like Paul and Larry talk. Still, it's a great book for anyone interested in enhancing the capabilities of the WRT54G. This book is full of fantastic information about modifying the WRT54G. I found it extremely useful and the projects have so far provided me with hours of hacking fun.
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