password hash

[Johnnymushio]

i have a password from a user on mymessage board but it is hashed, 2f2cb8e0b7aae3c36e164b7a795207c9

how can i figure out what it is, for non malicious purposes

[Twey]

You can't -- that's the point of a hash

[Johnnymushio]

twey!!! long time no see. and from what im reading about hased, it cant be decrypted, but it is possible to find out what the word is

[Twey]

Only if someone's already stored it and its original text (and they haven't, at least publically, I already checked the common public rainbow tables).

[djr33]

Brute force. If you MUST know, just write a program that will run through until it finds it.
that's the only way unless it's already been stored.
Also, you'll need to know the algorithm. It's likely md5, but it would be sha1, md4, or several other things. The system might also have a trick in use, like using md5 on the md5 hash, etc.

[Trinithis]

Ask the user?

[lainlives]

Ask the user?

best bet

[Twey]

Brute force. If you MUST know, just write a program that will run through until it finds it.

If it hasn't found it in any of the common rainbow tables, which have been running for several years on a wide network of distributed machines, I doubt that's an option

[djr33]

Aren't those based on user input of specific passwords?

For example, "sdafjkl23432" probably isn't in there, right? Using brute force would find even the weird possible passwords.

If they have been running brute force and it isn't in the table, then that's very weird. I suppose it's either quite long or using characters that aren't usually checked.

[Twey]

Aren't those based on user input of specific passwords?

Some of them are, some aren't.

If they have been running brute force and it isn't in the table, then that's very weird. I suppose it's either quite long or using characters that aren't usually checked.

It doesn't have to be that long -- they'd only got up to about eight characters last I checked.