Colophon

The animal on the cover of Machine Learning and Security is a Siberian pit viper (Gloydius halys), also known as a halys viper. It lives throughout a wide segment of Asia east of the Ural Mountains, including parts of Russia and China. This snake is venomous and part of the pit viper family. Pit vipers are so named for a specialized heat-sensing organ in a deep pit on their snout. This pit organ helps in finding warmer or cooler places as needed for temperature regulation, as well as sensing and striking prey. Most pit viper species also give birth to live young rather than laying eggs.

The Siberian pit viper grows to a length of around 21–23 inches; females of the species are slightly longer than males. It has a slightly upturned snout, and the skin is patterned with large dark crossbars alternating with a lighter color (varying from gray to light brown or yellow, depending on the subspecies).

This snake hunts with an ambush method, where it remains still on the ground and waits for prey (such as a bird or small mammal) to pass close enough to strike. The venom will paralyze or kill its victim, which the viper then swallows whole. Like most snakes, Siberian pit vipers generally keep to themselves and will only bite humans if they feel threatened.

The cover image is from Lydekker’s Royal Natural History. The cover fonts are URW Typewriter and Guardian Sans. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.