goHackTools: A Go Translation of Classic Security Scripts, With Caveats

What goHackTools Actually Is

goHackTools is a collection of over 60 small Go programs, each stored in its own subdirectory under projects/. The README lists them with Russian names, and the code comments are also in Russian. The author states that the examples come from books like "Violent Python", "Black Hat Python", "Black Hat Go", and "Security with Go", among others. This is not a single tool with a unified interface. It is a set of standalone scripts, each solving one narrow task: cracking a Unix password file, scanning TCP ports, extracting PDF metadata, or generating a ROT-13 cipher. The intended audience is someone learning offensive security or Go, who wants to see how these techniques are implemented in a modern language. The README explicitly predicts that the examples are for reference only, not for criminal or malicious purposes, which sets the tone: this is educational material, not a commercial product.

Project Structure and the Book-to-Go Translation Model

The repository layout is straightforward: each project folder contains a Go file or a small set of files, often with a main function and a README of its own (though the top-level README does not include those details). The projects are numbered, starting from 01_crackUnixPass and going up to 63_icmpPayload. The numbering reflects the order they were added, not a dependency graph. The code is a direct translation of examples from the cited books, which means the style is instructional rather than production-grade. For instance, the SSH cracker (12_sshCrack) likely attempts passwords from a list, and the TCP proxy (14_TCPProxy) forwards traffic between two endpoints. There is no shared library or common package; each program is self-contained. This makes it easy to read one file in isolation, but it also means that fixes or improvements are not propagated across projects. If you find a bug in one tool, you must patch that folder alone.

Getting It Running: Dependencies and Build Commands

The README provides minimal setup instructions. It says to use Go Modules and to install libpcap-dev via sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev. This dependency is only needed for projects that use packet capture, such as the packet parser (09_packetParser) or the ICMP payload injector (63_icmpPayload). Other projects, like the Caesar cipher (22_CipherOfCaesar) or base64 encoding (44_base64), have no external dependencies beyond the Go standard library. To run a specific tool, you would navigate to its project folder and run go run main.go, or build it with go build. The README does not provide a global build command, and there are no releases or tags, so you must clone the repository and work with the source directly. The code comments are in Russian, so if you do not read Russian, you will need to rely on the English filenames and your understanding of the algorithms. The README also includes a note about Go Modules, but no go.mod file is visible in the repository root from the given material, so you may need to initialize modules yourself if the folder lacks one.

A Genuine Limitation: Maintenance and Consistency

The repository has no recent releases, and the last push date is unknown from the provided material. The README includes an SCC output showing 65 Go files with 3611 lines of code and 888 complexity, which suggests a modest codebase, but that complexity is spread across many independent programs. There is no test suite mentioned, and no CI configuration is visible. This means you cannot rely on the code being up to date with current Go versions or security best practices. For example, the SSH cracker (12_sshCrack) likely uses a password list, but it may not handle modern SSH key exchange algorithms. The lack of a unified interface is also a limitation: to use multiple tools, you must learn each program's command-line arguments separately, which the README does not document. The project is wrong for anyone who needs a drop-in penetration testing suite, because you would have to audit and adapt each tool individually. The author's own prediction that the examples are for reference only reinforces that this is not a tool for production use.

The Alternative: Black Hat Go and Dedicated Security Tools

The direct alternative is the book "Black Hat Go" itself, which goHackTools draws from. That book provides the same examples but with full explanations, context, and exercises, allowing you to understand the trade-offs and modify the code with purpose. In contrast, goHackTools gives you the code without the narrative, so you miss the why behind each technique. For actual penetration testing, dedicated tools like Nmap for port scanning or John the Ripper for password cracking are more feature-complete and actively maintained. goHackTools includes a port scanner (03_tcpScanner) and a Nmap wrapper (04_goNmapScan), but the wrapper likely just calls Nmap, so you are better off using Nmap directly. The difference is that goHackTools is a learning aid, not a replacement for those tools. If you want to learn Go by reading security code, goHackTools is useful; if you want to run a scan, use the original tools.

License and Maintenance Cost

The project is licensed under MIT, which allows you to use, modify, and distribute the code freely, with attribution. The README points to a LICENSE.md file, but the full text is not provided in the given material. There is a CONTRIBUTING.md, an ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md, and a CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md, which suggests the author welcomes contributions, but there is no evidence of active development. The maintenance cost for you is high: you must check each project for compatibility with your Go version, because there are no releases to pin to. The code comments in Russian add a translation burden if you need to understand the logic. The dependency on libpcap-dev for some projects means you need system-level packages, which could complicate cross-platform builds. On the positive side, the MIT license means you can fork the repository and maintain your own patched version without legal friction, as long as you keep the license notice. That is a practical path if you find the examples valuable but need updates.

A Point of View: The Value Is in the Catalog, Not the Code

What makes goHackTools worth looking at is its breadth. It covers topics from network reconnaissance to cryptography to forensics, all in one place. The list of projects reads like a table of contents for a security course. But the code itself is thin, averaging about 55 lines per Go file, which means each tool is a minimal example, not a robust implementation. This is a trade-off: you get a quick overview of many techniques, but you cannot expect any single tool to handle edge cases or performance demands. For a student, that is fine. For a professional, it is a starting point for writing your own tool. The lack of documentation for each project is a real gap. The README gives a one-line description in Russian for each project, but no usage examples or command-line flags. You will have to read the source to figure out how to run it. That is acceptable for a learning resource, but it disqualifies goHackTools as a drop-in utility.

Editorial conclusion

Adopt goHackTools if you are a security student or a Go developer who wants to see how classic attacks like SYN flood, SSH brute force, or steganography are implemented in Go, and you are comfortable reading code that is not actively maintained and contains Russian comments. Do not adopt it if you need production-ready tools, regular updates, or a unified command-line interface. Before using any project, verify that the target system is authorized for testing, and check that the specific program compiles with your Go version, since there are no releases and no recent push data. Start with the projects that have no external dependencies, like 44_base64 or 22_CipherOfCaesar, and only then attempt the ones that require libpcap-dev, such as 09_packetParser or 63_icmpPayload. The repository is a learning resource, not a toolkit you can trust without review.

Official sources

1. Official documentation
2. Official README
3. Project repository