No Starch Press releases "Hacking the Cable Modem"

For Immediate Release
Media contact: Patricia Witkin
patricia@nostarch.com
415.863.9900 x303


New Book Shows How To Control Your Cable Modem

DerEngel, "Underground Prometheus of super-broadband," opens the box and
explains what's going on inside

San Francisco--In the beginning there was dial-up, and it
was slow; then came broadband in the form of cable, which redefined how we
access the internet, share information, and communicate with each other
online. "Hacking the Cable Modem" (No Starch Press, September 2006,
http://www.nostarch.com/cablemodem.htm) goes inside the device that makes
Internet via cable possible and, along the way, reveals secrets of many
popular cable modems, including products from Motorola, RCA, WebSTAR,
D-Link, and more. The book's author, DerEngel, is regarded in hacker
circles as the foremost expert on cable modems.

Once described in the media as "a dangerously unemployed U.S. coder," the
author now runs his own embedded development assembly business that seeks
to improve hardware by modifying and experimenting with it. Sometimes
dismissed as a thief or belittled as no better than a virus writer,
DerEngel's activities have drawn attention from the Slashdot crowd, have
been profiled by the SecurityFocus website, and have incited passionate
debate in many an online forum.

Written for people at all skill levels, Hacking the Cable Modem features
step-by-step tutorials with easy to follow diagrams, source code examples,
hardware schematics, and previously unreleased cable modem hacks. 

Readers of "Hacking The Cable Modem" will learn:

-the history of cable modem hacking

-how a cable modem and DOCSIS work

-the importance of firmware (including ways to install new firmware)

-how to unblock network ports and unlock hidden features

-how to hack and modify a cable modem

-what uncapping is and how it makes cable modems upload and download
faster

"I don't like black boxes; I like to know how things work. The goal of
this book and my point in publishing it is to show the many cable modem
users how that black box works, how to understand it, and how to control
it," said Bill Pollock, founder of No Starch Press. "DerEngel demystifies
cable modems for the legions of geeks who wonder just how the heck the
thing works."

For the idle tinkerer or active modder, "Hacking The Cable Modem" is sure to
shed new light on cable Internet.


Additional Resources:

Table of contents: http://www.nostarch.com/cablemodem_toc.htm 

Sample chapter: http://www.nostarch.com/download/cablemodem_ch17.pdf


About the Author: Profiled by Security Focus, TechTV, and the Register,
and the subject of multiple Slashdottings, DerEngel has been hailed as
"the underground Prometheus of super-broadband." He has written several
programs to simplify and streamline cable-modem hacking since he started
doing it himself in 2000. He currently heads TCNiSO, a group of hackers
that has revolutionized reverse engineering techniques and produces free
hackware.


Hacking the Cable Modem
by DerEngel
September 2006, 312 pp., $29.95 US 
ISBN 1-59327-101-8
http://www.nostarch.com/cablemodem.htm 

Available at fine bookstores everywhere, from www.oreilly.com/nostarch, or
directly from No Starch Press (www.nostarch.com, orders@nostarch.com,
800.420.7240). 


About No Starch Press: Founded in 1994, No Starch Press is one of the few
remaining independent computer book publishers. We publish the finest in
geek entertainment-unique books on technology, with a focus on Open
Source, security, hacking, programming, and alternative operating systems.
Our titles have personality, our authors are passionate, and our books
tackle topics that people care about. See www.nostarch.com for more
information and our complete online catalog. (And most No Starch Press
books use RepKover, a lay-flat binding that won't snap shut.)



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