c915e95033e8c69ada58eb784a98b2ed
. Even minor changes to the initial password produce completely different results; 'ArsTechnica' (with two uppercase letters) becomes 1d9a3f8172b01328de5acba20563408e
after hashing. Nothing about that second hash suggests that I am 'close' to finding the right answer; password guesses are either exactly right or fail completely.sed
through awk
and then grep
the whole thing about 50 times more quickly than those poor schlubs clicking their mice on pretty icons and menus. I believe them, but I still prefer a GUI when trying to figure out the many options of a complex new program—and Hashcat certainly fit the bill../hashcat-cli64.app MD5.txt -a 3 -m 0 -r perfect.rule