dive into mark

Here’s mine for the presidential race:

91E7FDF9FD7C1BD287A47EF6344700FD79EE13D6

Leave your prediction in comments or trackbacks. Then come back the day after the election and post your plaintext prediction and the hash algorithm you used. The commenter who comes closest to the actual results gets an autographed copy of Greasemonkey Hacks.

(HashEmAll.com for those of you on inferior operating systems.)

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Twenty nine comments here (latest comments)

1. I may be way off base here, but wouldn’t it be possible to design a pair of hashing algorithms to cheat here?
   For example, if using algorithm 1, “Obama” hashed to X, and using algorithm 2 “McCain” hashed to X as well, then couldn’t one decide which to say they had used?
   I guess forcing people to specify the prediction in a specific format that includes the electoral vote (”Obama 287 McCain 227″) would make it more difficult to perform this kind of trickery. Or maybe specifying the popular vote to a specific # of digits. Or something equally specific.

   — Steven Canfield 

2. 3D515DEAD7AA16560ABA3E9DF05CBC80 (MD5)

   — Ewout ter Haar 

3. 6ba0b62830e7b3a7b78dacfa593d1406ec58c27bfac9b44e84ab6334

   @Steven: Doing this with a secure hash function (esp. something from the SHA- family) should be well-nigh impossible. Also, you can add a salt (just make sure you write it down!)

   — Pianohacker 

4. Steven, err, I think the obvious idea is that you can pick any of the known cryptohash algorithms, not use one of your own device.

   — Aristotle Pagaltzis 

5. 92c557ee6cbadafc4caf00f4d5deab2c

   I believe I’m doing this right:

   $ md5

   ^D

   Copy and paste, yes?

   — Nathan DeGruchy 

6. Why don’t you just say it? Hashes are used when you don’t want to tip off competitors…

   — hugo 

7. 7f5646545700577e15876cbc6d63745d1a2e82d82e5d633ba1215af21117bcebad7d4ca34ad7b75456363ee16116c98612c602f86d5b8da84065c9b4096da2f7

   — Eivind Uggedal 

8. 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

   For most of you guys this looks like a series of 1 but it is actually a very clever random algorithm.

   — markus 

9. @hugo: but then it wouldn’t be geeky.

   — Mark 

10. Guys, sorry to spoil your fun, Ewout ter Haar has already given the right answer. Follow the link to see why. (Also, see http://www.theonion.com/content/video/diebold_accidentally_leaks for the exact percentage)

    — OB-1 

11. 84c4abf22fa67d3b098984d59abebed428cbfa3bee723d07fbdd7f47324062ed

    Far East shipping address to be provided.

    — hdh 

12. ac91baa0704bb3718c51d0dc736b71c4 md5

    I didn’t go to Hogwarts, so I’m not very good with telling the future.

    — W^L+ 

13. 02C904EF4885208E10583F4F341E01B24F9330B2

    — Improve Your Mind 

14. http://www.win.tue.nl/hashclash/Nostradamus/

    Is this what you’re referencing? :/

    — foo 

15. c07ba980aceba0917903195091bbceb0f1fe1a7c

    Only half serious, but I feel lucky ;-)

    — Pat 

16. I’m going to do this a bit differently. The MD5 hash I commit below is of a executable binary that will print the result :)

    10ff6b6ccb96af36fdda07afcde08bc5

    It will be available after the election at http://srijith.net/pub/uselection08 for verification.

    — Srijith 

17. 215865868473ECF27745EA7E0F56ED0462B9009C

    — rob friedman 

18. 21069e9ca64948b34a9a8aac8a383a0d551 FTW!

    — Jack Danger Canty 

19. 12C27444447C224345EBD40D865C85280DADBAC31CDF6409D14D61FF82E72CE4

    bet your house on it

    — Mentalacrobatics 

20. Geeky is for sure!

    — Anonymous 

21. md5: 39F9CD703DB11318EFB9E771FD3547D1

    A bit optimistic.

    — Rafael 

22. 3084D2CF2DED91FBCE0D0127E96F70700E79F1CE8E756155DDEF2B7D16897D14
    647928865E1E453839553672B0C1C73AB12E899B9170BE69D6E1373B0F10778B (sha512)

    — Erich Jansen 

23. 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

    — Grimmtooth 

24. Srijith: You could cheat like that! Since you’re making it a binary, and you’re doing an MD5 hash, you can do that MD5-manipulating thing those guys did with the .pdfs some time back. For shame!

    Oh, and 1dc1269b7f13ea3727870001b54d2e47, MD5. *Mine*’s plaintext, and thus plainly not padded.

    — Adam 

25. sha1 31C5A86C848EF2D8BA9ABC4E1C0376BD826E1880

    Even though do run an operating system that will do hashing for me, that link was just too damn handy. ; )

    — Ryan 

26. md5: 72a9f3593e22f73fc232e0961e57bdb3

    — kaarthik 

27. SHA 160bit (SHA1) FA4F63DA1106ABD9348278E3EA550405B9FB969E fedorov@rutgers.edu

    — Andrey Fedorov 

28. SHA1: 84b578e1250ead30cdf21ebfc494016648835e58

    — Chris B 

29. Adam (24): Of course :)

    — Srijith 

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