HackberryPiOS is built for administrators and defenders auditing networks they own or are explicitly authorised to assess. Active discovery and port scanning can trip intrusion-detection systems and, in some jurisdictions, scanning networks without permission is illegal. Get written authorisation before assessing networks that are not your own.

It does (non-intrusive enumeration & identification):

• ARP/ping host discovery, reverse-DNS / NetBIOS name resolution
• TCP port scanning and service/version banner reading
• SMB share listing (including anonymous/guest probes — read-only)
• DC location via public DNS SRV records and TCP reachability checks
• Reading SMB protocol/signing capability via nmap's standard NSE scripts
• Passive Wi-Fi survey and link-quality measurement
• Latency / throughput measurement

It does NOT:

• Exploit any vulnerability
• Brute-force or guess credentials
• Modify, write to, or delete anything on remote hosts
• Perform denial-of-service, flooding, or deauthentication attacks
• Capture or crack Wi-Fi handshakes

The "security" findings are posture observations (e.g. "SMBv1 is enabled", "this share allows anonymous access", "this Wi-Fi network is open"), each with a remediation hint — not attacks.

The Shares tab probes for guest/anonymous access by default because world-readable shares are a common, high-impact misconfiguration. This only lists what an unauthenticated user could already see; it never downloads or alters content.

If you supply SMB credentials (Shares tab), they are passed directly to smbclient for that scan and are not persisted. Exported JSON reports do not contain credentials. Be mindful that command arguments can be visible in the local process list while a scan runs.

• arp-scan and raw nmap scans need CAP_NET_RAW. The installer grants this with setcap so you don't run the whole app as root. If you prefer, run the specific scans under sudo; otherwise the tool falls back to unprivileged methods.
• Run the application itself as an unprivileged user. Nothing here requires a root UI.

Exported reports describe your network in detail (hosts, services, findings). Treat them as sensitive: store and share them accordingly.