hash

i've been wondering what a hash is what-not. i googled it and found out it can be used as an encryption. so how can i relate this to the "other challenges" area so i can solve those hashes or whatever? anyone know a site cuz i mainly got company websites telling how they use thier hashes or something when i googled it?

A hash is basically one way encryption. It's meant to take a string and scramble it one way, so it cannot be decrypted. You can't decrypt it then, so if used for data validation, such as a password where you have the original password and the encrypted version, you compare what someone enters upon login to the encrypted version by encrypting the password they input. If it matches, the password is correct.

It's a great concept, and works wonders.

so inorder to solve those challenges, i need to guess and find out what equals what and then put them together? or do i need to find a program or something?

your going to need a hash cracker. there are two main types: one that works from a list of possible passwords and a second which works by making a random passwords until its found. You can either download one or build yourself one.

It acts like this:

Input the Hash to be cracked, and stores it as X Generate a random string, store as Y. Create a Hash of Y If Y is the same as X, Say that Y is the string

It continues from the second step thousands of times per second, repeating over and over again.