Books

bash Idioms - Carl Albing, JP Vossen

Jun 27, 2025 - 2 min read

Nasty weather all weekend, so here’s the second book of the week :) My colleague and I often argue about readability, cleanliness, and expressiveness of code. I write code so that even without knowing the language, but knowing English, a person could read and understand what I meant. My colleague calls this dirty, verbose, inexpressive code. Yet when he writes something in Python or bash, I can’t even parse a code block without an explanatory brigade.

AI Through a Hacker's Eyes - Xakep Magazine

Jun 25, 2025 - 2 min read

Honestly, this doesn’t feel like a real book, but I enjoyed reading it. It’s a collection of articles from Xakep magazine on the topic of artificial intelligence. Why doesn’t it feel like a book? There’s no common thread besides the topic. And the title doesn’t fully reflect the content. Out of 8 articles in this collection, only 5 match the title, talking about using AI capabilities for hacking. The other 3 articles are just about AI.

Ethical Hacker - Nikita Shakhulov

Jun 10, 2025 - 2 min read

The worst book of the week :) The book starts with a gloomy litany of terms and international standards that were machine-translated without proofreading for grammar or gender agreement. Sometimes it’s physically painful to read :)

Efficient Linux at the Command Line - Daniel J. Barrett

Jun 7, 2025 - 2 min read

With a title like that, I expected a desktop reference packed with bash lifehacks, but no :) The author explains simple concepts in a complex and verbose way. Even knowing how to use the described tools and using them every day, I struggled to get through the author’s thickets of explanations.

Real-World Bug Hunting - Peter Yaworski

May 30, 2025 - 1 min read

Really enjoyed this book, especially in contrast with the OSINT Handbook (Dale Meredith). No boasting, no showing off anyone’s professionalism. The author struck me as a humble, respectful, and thoughtful person.

The OSINT Handbook - Dale Meredith

May 25, 2025 - 2 min read

Read the book “The OSINT Handbook” by Dale Meredith. I should note that I read the Russian translation, so the localization team might have contributed their own flavor. For building a general understanding of OSINT as a phenomenon, it’ll do. The title, in my opinion, is too bold to call it a “handbook.”

Linux. From Beginner to Professional

Mar 15, 2024 - 1 min read

A decent overview book for beginners. I picked up a few interesting things and made about a page of notes. If you already have Linux experience, it won’t be as exciting to read, but it does put some order in your head.

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software

Feb 1, 2024 - 1 min read

A pleasant journey into the history of the birth of technologies that together gave us the modern world of semiconductors, communications, computers, software. Although I know almost all of these events separately, I even observed some of them personally, it was very interesting to read this book. I recommend.