Interested in learning about hashing passwords? How do programs hash? What is hashing?
Hashing is the foundation of tech like blockchains that make cryptocurrencies possible. See Blockchain 101 – A Visual Demo and Blockchain 101 – Part 2 – Public / Private Keys and Signing.
So for a fun study session, let’s follow a walkthrough on Password Hashing in Python, see the original post by DillonB07.
Watch live video:
Disclaimer, this is not my original work, see links for more details. For a python guide, see Intro to Python.
1. Update Python and Pip
Update both pip and Python before starting this program. Either open PowerShell or do it via vscode terminal:
C:\\<path to program>\\python.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip
Optionally uninstall Python via Control Panel and reinstalled via Python.org, or do it via command line too.
2. Import Werkzeug “Tool” Module
Importing modules is very simple in Python.
from werkzeug.security import generate_password_hash, check_password_hash
I’m familiar with import being the command, I need to do more reading up on from to better understand why some modules need this over others.
This is what gave me all the issues, couldn’t use the werkzeug module, after a while, just a simple update fixed this.
3. Generate Password Hash
Let’s use generate_password_hash to convert a string inside a variable to a SHA256 hash.
password = 'hello world'
hashword = generate_password_hash(password, 'sha256')
print(f'1: {hashword}')
password1 = 'hello world'
hashword1 = generate_password_hash(password, 'sha256')
print(f'2: {hashword}')
Also, this is using f strings, something else I need to read up on.
4. Check Password Hash
Lastly, use check_password_hash to receive a Boolean value of True or False when comparing passwords.
checked = check_password_hash(hashword, password1)
print(checked)
This also confused me a bit, my hashes were not exactly the same as the example. I’m not sure if the module has changed or I did something wrong.
5. Reflection
This was a great little project to explore while learning Python. Replit, the software I use to run and embed Python programs has an amazing community.
I’m absolutely loving scrolling through their user tutorials to find well-written guides and posts.
While watching Twitch, I was also inspired to record the full process of writing code. Something I’m terrified of! Recording myself and putting it out there is hard, but this was a nice introduction to it.
I’m going to hit record more in the future and share the work! I think giving people the opportunity to watch the entire process is exciting.
This is Day 23 of #100DaysOfHacking, subscribe to the newsletter for updates and if you have feedback, message me via Twitter. Happy Hacking.
