Great book, until you get to page 31 where you start to write the debugger code.
The code is a disaster. It is unclearly written, with a mixture of typos and lines shouldn't be there. If you type in the code as written, it does not work. There were some "updates" added to correct some issues, but other unclear/incorrect parts are not in the updates. If the code doesn't work as-written, it is impossible to tell if I'm entering the code wrong or if the problem is the way the code is written in the book.
For a breakdown of the errors: http://stacksmash.org/2009/06/gray-hat-python-by-justin-seitz-errata/
In short, it's a great 31 pages but after that the book is useless. If one is already an expert in Python and C, then they can possibly know enough to correct the coding errors but the reason I bought the book was to gain experience with Python. Is it that hard to at least make sure the code works?
I wouldn't have an issue with typographical errors, but the code falling part as early as page 31 is inexcusable.
Very, very disappointed with not only this book but No Starch Press.
Do not buy.
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Gray Hat Python Paperback – 15 April 2009
by
Justin Seitz
(Author)
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Product details
- Language : English
- Paperback : 216 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1593271921
- ISBN-13 : 978-1593271923
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Best Sellers Rank:
78,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 170 in Computer Security
- 369 in Programming Languages
- 370 in Computer Networking & Security
- Customer reviews:
Product description
About the Author
Justin Seitz is a senior security researcher for Immunity, Inc., where he spends his time bug hunting, reverse engineering, writing exploits, and coding Python. He is the author of Black Hat Python (No Starch Press).
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Automate the Boring Stuff with Python | Python Crash Course | Doing Math with Python | Black Hat Python | Python Playground | Gray Hat Python | |
User Experience Level | Beginners | Beginners | Readers who know Python basics | Intermediate | Experienced | Experienced |
For readers who want to… | Use Python to automate tedious computer tasks | Get a fast-paced, thorough introduction to Python and create three substantial projects from scratch | Delve into high school-level math topics using Python | Write Python-based offensive security tools on the fly | Explore Python’s versatility with imaginative programming projects | Automate security tasks, discover vulnerabilities, and write their own hacking tools |
Tools Covered | Regular Expressions, Requests, Beautiful Soup, OpenPyXL, PyPDF2, PyAutoGUI | PyGame, matplotlib, Pygal, Django | matplotlib, SymPy | Scapy, openCV, BurpSuite, ctypes, Paramiko, urllib2 | matplotlib, Numpy, OpenGL, Pillow, Arduino, Raspberry Pi | PyDBG, Immunity Debugger, Sulley, IDA Python, PyEMU, PyDev, ctypes |
Compatible with Python Version | Python 3 | Python 2 & 3 | Python 3 | Python 2 | Python 2 & 3 | Python 2 |
Page Count | 504 pp. | 560 pp. | 264 pp. | 192 pp. | 352 pp. | 216 pp. |
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Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon.com
Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars
44 reviews

Mick
1.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, until you get to page 31 where ...
8 February 2017 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
29 people found this helpful

BuildYourOwn
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly about reverse engineering in windows
24 July 2020 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
The title is fairly accurate - for hackers and reverse engineers. To be more accurate, it is mostly about reverse engineering in windows using Python2. I am by no means a security guy and to me most of the chapters are devoted to how to write windows system calls in python. Before I made the purchase, I read other people's comments and was hoping to learn some general techniques for building my own tools. However, this book is very much concentrated on reverse engineering so if you are not into this do not buy this book.
As others have pointed out, this book is dated. Code is in python2. pydbg is not updated in more than 10 years. Immunity debugger is still being maintained but getting a copy requires personal information which I do not want to provide. IDA pro is also hard to get. The concepts are still relevant though. You will definitely learn some concepts about security. At least for me I now know what hackers use debuggers for.
As others have pointed out, this book is dated. Code is in python2. pydbg is not updated in more than 10 years. Immunity debugger is still being maintained but getting a copy requires personal information which I do not want to provide. IDA pro is also hard to get. The concepts are still relevant though. You will definitely learn some concepts about security. At least for me I now know what hackers use debuggers for.

Doc W
1.0 out of 5 stars
out dated
5 July 2019 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
Useful if you traveled back in time 10 years.
3 people found this helpful

surferjreb
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good info, not worth the price so far...
6 April 2021 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
The code in the book is a little outdated. Who codes in python 2.5 anymore. It was easy enough to modify to work with python 2.7. Good information, still working on finishing, but keep having to modify the code presented in the book. Some updates on the website. Would have not spent the money on this title had I googled it first. Found several free pdf versions, easily.

Robert A. Cotterman-nelson
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great book even for python 3
13 July 2019 -
Published on Amazon.comVerified Purchase
Great book, I was nervous about python 2 to 3 etc... But python 3 uses most if not all the python 2 libraries now. So the only difference is really the print statement. Not worth worrying about.
One person found this helpful