Please enlighten me as to the point of this article then, because from my POV, it's a list of 'hacking tools' that you can use to be an entry-level 'hacker'.
This notion of being a hacker due to using a tool is preposterous. The only thing the article does is perpetuate the flawed understanding of computer security and hacking for the general public.
"We started with Linux" (that's a subheading, mind you!) — "That’s crucial for hackers, because although the temptation is to focus on their tools, the job is as much art as science" — "If you can get physical access to a network"...
Like, you're just not reading the article. You're just not. The fact that the OP mentions "getting physical" is an obvious counterexample to your criticism and reduction of "it's a list of "hacking tools"'. Can you see the narrative (the forest)?
No one calls Linux "a tool" in the sense you're talking about. The OP is saying, with that subheading, "If you're just some Windows [power?] user, you've got to radically change that" — or even further, "If you don't know that OS X is *nix, to say the least, you've got to radically change that".
I mean, it's The Guardian for Chrissake. What do you expect, a list of dotfiles with rich comments?
I thought it was great. Maybe I haven't heard of these tools before. Reading about them doesn't mean I know how to use them or have a thorough understanding of security, but it's a good place to start googling and learn more.
nmap is a fairly common used tool for more than testing. So is dig netstat sockstat nc tcpdump qmail djbdns pf s(sh|cp) traceroute also read your security and tuning man pages as a great place to start.
