In case there was any danger of me running out of things to read over the summer, I’ve found a way to stave off all possible risk. I spotted a note on the blog of Bruce Schneier (noted cyber security expert) that several of his books were available in a deal from the HumbleBundle site. For a fistful of dollars, I was able to pick up all the books and immediately download them. Fourteen volumes – enough to keep me going if I devoted the entire summer to studying them.

The downside of such a deal is that many of them aren’t particularly new titles. The most recent is from 2016 but one goes back to 2002 and several are anniversary editions so originally came out even longer ago even if they have been substantially revised. However, I didn’t have any of them and, while some things go out of date, many of the underlying principles are enduring. For example, social engineering, which is the direct topic of two of the volumes, is really the art of the con job, which people have had to guard against… well, probably for as long as there have been people.

The other issue I had was that a lot of the books didn’t get properly catalogued when I loaded them into Mendeley (my choice of bibliographic management software – I can now scribble electronic notes in them and search for things). It meant a few minutes playing librarian to get them in order. All done now though and, if even just one of them turns out to be useful, that will justify the investment.