Last time there was a bundle like this (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?
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.
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:
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%).
Good advice on setting your charity. I'd be hesitant for mass amount of people going 100% charity as this needs to be worth it for both starch and humblebundle in order to get similar deals :)
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%.
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 MWL writes great stuff but the book is sort of specific to OpenBSD (and even a little bit outdated then: sudo vs doas).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.
The physical books from this list I own are actually great (Metaploit guide, Pentesting, Book of PF, Art of Exploitation, The IDA Pro Book, and Practical Packet Analysis). I am buying this bundle because I'd love to have PDFs of these, and I'm thinking the other books must be good if they're bundled with these others which I find useful.
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.