
Humble Book Bundle: Hacking Reloaded - prostoalex
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/hacking-reloaded-books
======
Asdfbla
I'd also be interested in someone knowledgeable weighing in on the quality of
those books.

My first world problem with somewhat random information dumps like that is
usually that I don't really find that it's a lack of resources holding you
back from learning about certain topics, it's a lack of time. The quality of
those books really has to significantly eclipse what's available on the
internet (especially in terms of presentation of the material) before it seems
worth buying them (to be fair, price is not a real issue here, just in
principle). For instance, I don't really see the value of software reference
manuals (unless you already know the software and just need the reference, but
then you would likely own it already and not buy it from humble bundle,
right?).

~~~
freedomben
I have many of these books, and I can vouch for their quality. They are
excellent.

Get the $15 bundle. Those are the best ones. They are a little bit out of
date, but still very relevant. This is a steal!

Especially great books:

* Hacking the Art of Exploitation

* The Ida Pro Book (mostly if you use Windows)

* The Practice of Network Security Monitoring

* Practical Packet Analysis

The Metasploit book was pretty good too, and taught me a lot about Metasploit.
It didn't really scratch the "deep dive" itch that I usually have though.

~~~
therein
I have the physical copies of the first two. The IDA Pro Book, I remember
ordering 8 years ago because I didn't have such persistent internet connection
back then.

~~~
indigochill
I have one question about the IDA Pro book: is it relevant for those of us who
can only use the freeware 5.0 version?

It isn't used at my workplace and the price point seems too steep for my use
(CTFs) when there are less expensive disassemblers available.

~~~
heinrich5991
Which other disassemblers do you personally use?

~~~
indigochill
I've been dabbling with Radare2 for disassembly.

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busterarm
Big shoutouts to No Starch Press for these awesome book bundles. I own many of
these physically but will pick this up anyway.

Thanks for the extra swag at DefCon too, Bill!

~~~
SparkleBunny
Shout-out to them for not backing down when publishing Bunnie Huang's "Hacking
the Xbox." Even MIT refused to have his back.

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arkx
Last time there was a bundle like this
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14791255))
dsacco wrote an awesome comment with recommendations on which books to pick
up. Any chance for another round?

~~~
busterarm
The entire $15 tier is worth it, except for maybe the IDA Pro book if you have
no interest in either reversing or using IDA Pro. It's mostly a software
reference.

Book of PF & Absolute OpenBSD are somewhat essential if you have interest in
OpenBSD, but the latter is skippable if you're a seasoned neckbeard/sysadmin.

I can't really say anything else about the lower tier books, but the 35% off
coupon is quite nice.

~~~
chicago_wade
Speaking of BSD. While the OpenBSD guys are not on the Humble charity list,
The FreeBSD Foundation is, and both Peter N.M. Hansteen and Michael W. Lucas
(the authors of the two of the respective books you mentioned) seem to be into
FreeBSD also.

So to anyone else buying the bundle primarily for the books on OpenBSD, and
who happen to support FreeBSD also:

1\. Log in or create an account.

2\. Go to [https://www.humblebundle.com/store/select-
charity/charity/21...](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/select-
charity/charity/21807) and select it as your chosen charity to support.

3\. When you go to pay for the books adjust the sliders so that you give some
percentage (I chose 100%) to charity and under charity adjust the slider for
The FreeBSD Foundation (once again I chose 100%).

Deal? Deal!

~~~
jsgo
I feel like it may be a yes, but just to ask: would the OpenBSD books be of
benefit for someone wanting to get started with FreeBSD? I'm guessing the
answer is more likely a percentage, somewhere > 50%.

~~~
busterarm
If you're using PF instead of IPFW on FreeBSD, for that book yes.

I would actually say maybe/maybe-not for the other book. MWL writes great
stuff but the book is sort of specific to OpenBSD (and even a little bit
outdated then: sudo vs doas). You could probably get the same out of deep
reading of man pages. If you don't know your way around man or BSD init yet,
then yes, pick it up.

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jlgaddis
FWIW, I have at least one book from each of the "levels" (dead tree versions,
though) and each of those books would individually easily justify the cost.

I'm debating going ahead and picking up the entire bundle but I really really
really prefer hardcopy versions of books. I personally don't care for
"e-books" at all.

(Edit: the books I have are the Metasploit, pf, Hacking, and OpenBSD books.)

~~~
dguaraglia
I'm kind of divided. I enjoy e-books when reading for pleasure, but somehow I
still seem to learn better when reading from hard copies, so I end up buying a
lot of reference bibliography on paper.

I'm not sure if this is a phenomenon other people have noticed?

~~~
terminalcommand
I've noticed also noticed this. Currently I'm thinking of buying a cheap
refillable laser printer to print out books an articles. There is something
else about reading something on paper and being able to work through it
(highlighting, taking notes etc.). I've tried PDF annotation programs, but
none of them worked quite well.

I think the solution to this problem might be either ultra high resolution
monitors or e-ink monitors.

~~~
mavhc
I think it's just easier to skip around, not read it slowly.

Are you comparing paper to screen, or paper to eink?

~~~
terminalcommand
I was comparing paper to screen. IMHO for skipping around monitors win hands-
down, but for learning and extracting information paper provides a much-more
focused experience.

