This brute force approach would work for short codes, but not for long ones. To generate all of the length 10 sequences would require computing about a billion hashes (8^10). That would work on my laptop, but length 11 codes (8 billion hashes) would be take a while, and 12 (68 billion hashes) would be a stretch.
We live in the future though. 68 billion hashes is absolutely possible on a laptop.
Also, the hash function shown should be easier to do than a „real“ cryptographic hash, right? The hash function looks pretty simple compared to something that’s artificially designed to take a lot of time to compute.
And another thing I noticed: because the hash is built Button by button, you can reuse part of the state when checking sequences. So if you’re checking a 10 button sequence, you get all subsequences of that almost for free (just need a comparison after every step). Getting to 18 buttons of length is still a lot of calculation though.
Good point - the dictionary attack produces some permutations that are too long, but it doesn't matter because you get the effect as soon as the final character of the correct code is entered.
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Very cool article, love these.
We live in the future though. 68 billion hashes is absolutely possible on a laptop.
Also, the hash function shown should be easier to do than a „real“ cryptographic hash, right? The hash function looks pretty simple compared to something that’s artificially designed to take a lot of time to compute.
Yeah, for sure. It's as expensive to generate the permutations as it is to do the hashing in this case!
And another thing I noticed: because the hash is built Button by button, you can reuse part of the state when checking sequences. So if you’re checking a 10 button sequence, you get all subsequences of that almost for free (just need a comparison after every step). Getting to 18 buttons of length is still a lot of calculation though.
Good point - the dictionary attack produces some permutations that are too long, but it doesn't matter because you get the effect as soon as the final character of the correct code is entered.