This text distinguishes itself from its competitors with its extensive coverage of cryptography under Java. The final quarter of the book discusses encryption algorithms, key generators, encrypted streams, and hash algorithms. This is one of the first deep explorations of encryption for Java. Remote Method Invocation (RMI) coverage stands as somewhat weak, though there's a little bit of attention paid to new Java APIs, including those relating to CORBA. The companion CD-ROM contains all the code from the book, including some ready-to-use collaboration tools.
Overall, Java Network Programming provides an adequate introduction to all Java communication issues and goes the extra mile in explaining security and encryption.