Using md5deep, sha1deep, sha256deep and whirlpooldeep to generate hash values in Kali Linux - Assign

Steps to Generate Hash Values Using Kali Linux Virtual Machine

Task:

For this fourth assignment, you are going to use md5deep, sha1deep, sha256deep, and whirlpooldeep hash generators in Kali Linux virtual machine. To do this assignment, follow these steps:

1. Using VirtualBox, start (launch) your Kali Linux virtual machine. Login to the Kali virtual machine using username: root and password: toor
2. On the menu bar of your Kali Linux virtual machine, click Applications, select Accessories, and then select Terminal to launch a Terminal command line.
3. Create a text file named country1.txt as follows: on your Kali machine Terminal prompt, type nano country1.txt and hit the Enter key. At this point, you should see the nano text editor window opened. 
Inside this nano window, type the following contents, including the quotes: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” Press Ctrl-x, then type Y, and then hit Enter to save country1.txt file. At this point, nano window is closed and you are back at the Terminal prompt. To confirm that you have saved this text file, at the Kali machine Terminal prompt, type cat country1.txt and then hit the Enter key. You should see the contents of this text file on the screen.
4. Repeat step 3 above to create another text file, country2.txt, with the following contents: “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. Notice that the contents of country2.txt file are almost identical to the contents of country1.txt file. The only difference is that in country2.txt, the period is outside rather than inside the double quotes.
5. On your Kali machine Terminal prompt, type: md5deep country1.txt country2.txt and then hit the Enter key. At this point, you should see the hash values for country1.txt and country2.txt generated by the md5deep hash generator.
6. On your Kali machine Terminal prompt, type: sha1deep country1.txt country2.txt and then hit the Enter key. At this point, you should see the hash values for country1.txt and country2.txt generated by the sha1deep hash generator.
7. On your Kali machine Terminal prompt, type: sha256deep country1.txt country2.txt and then hit the Enter key. At this point, you should see the hash values for country1.txt and country2.txt generated by the sha256deep hash generator.
8. On your Kali machine Terminal prompt, type: whirlpooldeep country1.txt country2.txt and then hit the Enter key. At this point, you should see the hash values for country1.txt and country2.txt generated by the whirlpooldeep hash generator.
9. At this point, you want to take a screenshot of your Terminal window (be sure you capture the results of steps 5-8 in the screenshot). To take a screenshot, do the following steps:
a. Click on Applications | Accessories | Screenshot. At this point, a Take Screenshot window pops up.
b. In the Take Screenshot window, be sure that the following option is selected: Grab the current window.
c. Click on the Take Screenshot button
d. Give an appropriate file name, say, hwk4screenshot.png.
e. Be sure that you save it in the root folder of the Kali machine.
f. Click the Save button. At this point, the screenshot has been saved in the root folder of the Kali machine.
10. Answer the following questions:
a. What is the length (in characters) of each of the following hash values? md5deep hash value, sha1deep hash value, sha256deep hash value, and whirlpooldeep hash value.
b. How many bits is the output of each of the following hash functions (generators)? md5deep hash function, sha1deep hash function, sha256deep hash function, and whirlpooldeep hash function.
The number of bits of a hash function’s output represents the hash function’s strength - higher number of bits means stronger hash function. Note that each character in a hash value is four bits. Each character in a hash value is a hexadecimal value that represents numbers using base 16. Unlike the common way of representing numbers with ten symbols, hexadecimal numeral systemuses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols "0"–"9" to represent values zero to nine, and "A"–"F" (or alternatively "a"–"f") to represent values ten to fifteen. These sixteen different symbols can be represented by 4 bits (i.e., 24 = 16). For examples, the numbers 0-15 can be represented by 4 bits symbol as follows: 0000, 0001, 0010, 0011, 0100, 0101, 0110, 0111, 1000, 1001, 1010, 1011, 1100, 1101, 1110, and 1111.
c. Note that the only difference between country1.txt and country2.txt is the location of the period. In country1.txt, the period is inside the quotes. In country2.txt, the period is outside the quotes. One of several characteristics of a good hash function is that it generates very different hash values for similar input documents. Now, consider any one of the hash functions, say md5deep (see Question #5 above). Considering that the two inputs (country1.txt and country2.txt) to md5deep are very similar documents, did md5deep produce two similar or very different hash values?
d. If you were to replace the contents of country1.txt with many long paragraphs and then you use md5deep to generate a hash value for this revised country1.txt, do you think the length (in bits) of the resulting hash value will be longer than the length of the hash value prior to the content change?