Would anyone recommend good network security books?

Hey guys,

I will do some network programming at my work, and I was wondering if you guys could recommend me some good network/network security books. I'll probably be spending most of my time developing a client (Windows program) which involves communicating with various web services. The communication would involve using private/public keys, certificate, Service Token Service, Service Locator Service, and all the other goodies. I'll be mostly likely to use Windows Cryptographic API, and I guess I could learn things on msdn as I go on, but I wanted to ramp up/review these before I get to development to save up some time. Thanks!

Since no one's answered this post yet, you might as well look at the cheesy review I wrote here.

If you can already do network programming, some of the early stuff won't interest you much. Also it uses linux -- although that might not be bad for you to learn since the net is *nix. I'll reiterate that it is very well written and an unusually good, almost unique, book in a number of ways (it's actually exciting and code intensive). I think there are samples on the net. His approach is very general and low level, introducing security concerns by demonstrating first how something works, then how it can be/is exploited, then how common exploits are dealt with and how that's driven the technology.

Hard for me to say enough good things about it, actually, altho I still haven't finished the damn thing because all I really wanted was a general grasp of networking principles and to do some hands-on programming with same.

ps. I've read more "computer books" since I wrote that review but still have the same opinion about how great "The Art of Exploitation" is. Everything I manage to say about it just seems goofy by comparison, which may be why the review is such a (messed up) sketch...I get nervous around hot cars too.