SEO tools, are they blackhat or whitehat or both?

Newbie question:

I noticed that a lot of people constantly bring up seoquake, seonuke, seobook, wordtracker and xrumer...

are these tools useful? And if so, do you have to be careful with them or can you just go all out and post a ton of articles etc???

Also, would using these tools be considered blackhat or whitehat?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Oh also...

do you recommend i use those tools to directly link to my money page? Or should i have it link to a web 2.0 page?

IMO blackhat is anything done to get around website and other company's rules.
Most of what you listed just automates what you would do manually and its rare that a tool itself is blackhat but how its used.

@Rhianni32 well said. Tools are tools. Their master decides using them for good or for bad.