Need help coding with Python (edited)

[emeryt123]

Hello,
I am working on a science fair project on how long it takes for a computer program/code to decipher a password from one of the project ideas here. The first step is to download Python, however, when I do that, I can see the file, but not the other file to where I can actually build my code. How can I do this?

-Emery
(Edit: Turns out I cannot run Python on my school computer, so I am using W3Schools instead... hopefully that works)

Moderator note: Science Buddies project link: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... -be-hacked

[ameyab19]

Hi,

Sounds like a great idea to use W3Schools to work around the Python issue. Since WS3Schols is web-based, you could also try saving your code on a separate document before closing the tab so you don't lose your progress.

Good luck on your project!

- AB

[emeryt123]

Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I have had to move once again, this time to OneComplier.
I actually got my code down this time, but the current issue is that I can only do so many digits for my code to guess before it says "CPU time limit exceeded", which I know is from the actual website not being able to compute all the data.

Any advice for being able to guess more complex codes?
Here is the current code. (I don't know how to paste a screenshot.)

import itertools
import string
import time


target = ""

charset = string.ascii_letters + string.digits + string.punctuation

print(f"Testing target password: '{target}'")
print("Starting search...")

start_time = time.perf_counter()

attempts = 0
found = False

target_length = len(target)
for combination in itertools.product(charset, repeat=target_length):
attempts += 1
guess = "".join(combination)

if guess == target:
found = True
print("Password found!")
break

end_time = time.perf_counter()
elapsed_seconds = end_time - start_time

if found:
print(f"\nPassword: '{guess}'")
print(f"Total attempts: {attempts:,}")
print(f"Elapsed Time: {elapsed_seconds:.6f} seconds")
print("Try another?")

[ameyab19]

Hi,

I think OneCompiler stops the program because longer passwords create too many guesses (since the code tries every possible combo of letters/numbers/symbols).

Maybe you could try doing numbers only with just charset = string.digits to try fewer combos? Then, you could compare how long it takes to guess passwords of different lengths.

Hope this helps!

- AB