Hash Workshop

• Date : 2-3-4 March 2015
• Time: 4PM - 6PM
• Workshop Title: Hash Function
• Location : CIT - UAEU

As the title implies, I've enrolled myself in a 3-fantastic-day workshop. It's a workshop that's related to my major and I couldn't wait to start off with it although it was part of my Cryptography course but I did not really care. It was something I wanted to sign up for mainly because my favourite professor was running it and because it was one of my favourite Cryptography topics. One that is worth knowing actually. Plus the timing was just great, I had just finished 2 of my nerve-wrecking quizzes and thought why not go for it. Anyways, the following summarises the 3 day workshop.

**Day 1**

• Briefly introducing Hash Function through a real-life example & explaining the importance of it.
• Going through the properties of Hash Function and what makes it a one-way function
• The size of the message as in the input is not fixed (i.e. it can be of any size) , however, the size of the output is fixed (128 bits) regardless. That's what makes it facinating.
• This means that messages of different sizes can have the same hash value H(x) but it's impossible to find these 2 messages though they exist.
• Explaining - my favourite - hash function example : MD5
• Our instructor analysed the contents of the MD5 hash as well as provided a very detailed diagram as follows 

• He carefully explained how to calculate the number of blocks needed given the length of the message:
• Convert the message given to bits ( let's call this value x ).
• x (mod512) , then take the digit part of the decimal ( let's call this value y).
• Number of blocks = y +1
• Why "y+1"?
• Because throughout the process we were calculating the number of blocks needed for the message we were given, in order to have space for the padding and the message length of 64-bits we need an extra block for that.
• What if the message was greater than 2^64?
• In this case we should call the message M and do the following : M(mod(2^64)).
• By the end of the day we were able to use Excel to convert the ingredients of the MD5 functions for the next day, we were also able to draw a clear image of the steps we were going to follow to generate the 128-bit output:
1. Determine the number of blocks
2. Determine the padding and message length
3. Append the message length in a 64-bit representation, incase the message was greater then 2^64 then the result is as follows : M(mod(2^64))
4. We now initialize the MD5 buffer, by using the words A.B.C.D.

**Day 2**

Throughout the second day of the workshop we were able to work our way through the rest of the MD5 steps and perform the message digests, calculate the T's and knowing how to work with the functions needed for the 4 rounds and 16 steps involved in each round. This was possible with Excel, which I never knew would be any handy for me but it really was! I loved how as a security engineer I was able to actually analyse the given bits and divide them respectively as needed! My favourite part of the workshop was the second day because it was "hands-on" with Excel and I was actually working my way through the MD5 function with Excel. During my Crypto course, we had to work out the function on paper which was fun and awful to focus on 1s and 0s but still it was a great experience regardless of the confusion we had to overcome.Doing your work by hand is usually way better than using the computer to do it for you because the main goal of learning is to get your hands dirty..and we got them really dirty! :-)

**Day 3**

Sad to say but the last day of the workshop was filled with mixed emotions. I was enjoying my time so much and I was very ready to do so for a longer period of time ( 3 days weren't enough for the Hash but they were 3 days of great experiences) . Although this was my second time dealing with the Hash function, it felt like I was able to grasp everything I needed to know about this marvellous function in such a short time and to actually work on an example to help me know how things work with the Hash. To wrap this workshop the instructor focused on possible attacks on MD5 that I thought was not prone to attacks, but today was such a shock to me when I was able to actually see how an attack was possible on the MD5 which was kind of creepy but exciting at the same time and I'm blessed to witness it.

I just hope I get the chance to sign-up for a follow up workshop to this one or even for better ones in the near future! :)

Thank you sir!!

Hello January

Hello there virtual readers,

I'm making a comeback after sometime with my very first post of 2015. I didn't get to say this a few weeks back but I shall do it now : Happy New Year. No I won't go saying the other cheesy things you hear after that catch phrase, so I'll just keep it to that.

Anyways, on with the exciting stuff, so today I just officially finished all course related tasks for this semester (Fall 2014) and boy don't I feel so fly? It was about time to be honest, and I'm so glad I went through with my hard work till the very end. I still have my finals exams to sit for next week, and I'm planning on taking that week by storm to be honest and have a cherry on top.

I experienced a very odd incident today during my last presentation and it was officially the worst I've had so far! By worst I mean it went so badly I can't even find the proper word for it. Throughout this semester I've found out that I have a thing for public speaking, and I actually enjoy presenting and doing all the talking. So for one of my courses I had to work with a group of people that I've never worked with before and we actually weren't that close of friends, but I acknowledge the fact that I will end up working with all sorts of people that I do not know about, so that's a pro actually. Anyways, out of the blue I ended up being the team leader for that group where they didn't talk it through with me, I was just shocked to see my name under the "Team Leader" category, well that was unexpected but it was unavoidable. Just to keep it brief, one of the worst lessons I've learned and actually talked about during my presentation was "procrastination" . The professor was taken aback by that but I loved the fact that he always asked us to be honest whether it's good or bad, honesty will always be our key so that made me feel a bit confident with what I was saying. I clearly pointed out that I was not the type of person that usually procrastinates, I'm the type that gets things done earlier than necessary and always prefer knowing what I should do if I'm working in a group ( i.e. I like the work to be divided on all the team members so everyone knows what they need to get done).

Moving on, some other lessons I've learned include:

• Stepping up and taking the lead
• Elaborating on that, although I was assigned as the team leader, I had to force myself to overcome my feelings of feeling sorry for bothering and pushing my team members to do things early and change the way they usually work because apparently they never worked with someone like me before and that felt burdensome to be honest.

• Working with 3 different personalities 
• I usually worked in a group of 2 members or 3 at the max and that normally went well, but this time it was a group of 4 including myself and honestly it didn't go so well. I've been getting mad and always not comfortable whenever we had to submit documents because I was always wrapping them up a day before the deadline. That may sound kind of creepy but it's just the way I work, I want to get documents done a few days earlier than the deadline because in such a way I feel better in having the opportunity to go through the documents again and edit them if they need to be edited. On the contrary, I've learned to accept that I should also think of my team members and respect the way they work, as long as they get it done then that's all that matters right?

Well now that I got my presentations and quizzes done, I plan on charging my energy and start to get real business done starting tomorrow!

Laters!

Fall 2014

"A good start is never a good one unless you make it," - Echo Bliss

I was planning on posting this a week ago, but I thought it wouldn’t make any sense to write about “nothing”. Basically now that it’s been 2 weeks in the semester I thought a few interesting moments came about.

Everyone always says, students don’t take things seriously or they tend to procrastinate a lot. Well, as a matter of fact that is sort of true but at the same time you shouldn’t be generalising that fact on literally “ all students. This idea has always been a matter of discussion for me and I began to classify it as a “human-nature” trait because I had no other listing for it. Well of course not all people are the same but at the same time, you always go with the general public right.

Anyways on with the post, so this professor the other day impressed me with the way he respects time. It was an 8 A.M class and I’m usually in class about 15 minutes before or so, so he was a few minutes before class as well and to kill time he began reading his newspaper. Once it hit 8.00 A.M, he said:

“It’s time to start,and I do have to respect you’re arrival on time”

No one has ever said that and I’m already in my 4th year. That really made me feel , I don’t know very well respected. Instructors are always late, ad by always I literally mean always, and they always bug us for being late (not that I have) but why can’t it be the other way round. Well if it were then there will be no respect for the instructor right. It’s a complicated game I guess.

To keep this short and neat, I have a great feeling about this semester, thanks to the instructor that valued our attendance.