// Comparison

Click Here to Kill Everybody vs Linux Basics for Hackers: Which Should You Read?

Two cybersecurity books on Foundations, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.

Beginner

4/52018

Click Here to Kill Everybody

Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World

Bruce Schneier

Bruce Schneier's policy-level argument that as everything becomes a computer (cars, medical devices, infrastructure, voting), the security failures that used to merely cost us money will start costing lives — and the regulatory shape of that future is being decided now.

Beginner

4/52025

Linux Basics for Hackers

Getting Started with Networking, Scripting, and Security in Kali

OccupyTheWeb

OccupyTheWeb's introduction to Linux from the angle that hackers and pentesters actually need it: shells, networking, scripting, and Kali tooling.

Read this if

Engineers, policy people, and managers who need to brief leadership on why IoT, OT, and cyber-physical systems are categorically different from the IT security they grew up with. Also the right first Schneier book for anyone newly responsible for cyber-physical risk.

Beginners with no Linux background who need just enough fluency to follow security tutorials, run security tools, and not get lost. Required prerequisite for most pentest, OSCP, and CTF starting paths.

Skip this if

Readers wanting hands-on IoT-hacking technique; for that, Practical IoT Hacking (Chantzis et al.) and The Hardware Hacking Handbook are the references. Also dated on specific 2018 examples even though the structural arguments hold.

Anyone who already uses Linux daily. The book is intentionally introductory; experienced users will find every chapter familiar.

Key takeaways

Internet+ — Schneier's term for cyber-physical convergence — changes the consequences of security failure, not just the surface.
Markets won't fix this; the book's policy argument is that liability, regulation, and procurement standards are the only working levers.
Engineering culture and policy culture talk past each other; the book is a useful Rosetta stone in both directions.

Linux fluency for security work is a small, finite skill: shell, file ops, services, networking commands, basic scripting. The book covers exactly that and nothing more.
Type every command. The book is muscle-memory training disguised as a reference; passive reading wastes the time.
Kali is a defaults-and-tooling distro, not a different OS; understanding base Linux means you'll never be confused when the tool isn't pre-installed.

How they compare

Click Here to Kill Everybody and Linux Basics for Hackers are both rated 4/5 in our catalog. Pick by topic preference and reading style rather than by rating.

Both books target beginner-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.

Click Here to Kill Everybody and Linux Basics for Hackers both cover Foundations, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.

Keep reading