Steemit Crypto Academy || Hash and Cryptography || Homework task for @pelon53

Greetings to everyone, I must say that I have really gained a lot of knowledge about the crypto world and I am glad the Steemit crypto academy is back for another season.
In this week’s lecture the professor @pelon53 gave a wonderful lecture on the topic Hash and Cryptography.

With that I will now attempt the assignment given by the professor.

Canva

Explain what does the resistance to collision mean? And what does resistance to preimage mean?

Before I start to explain these two terms above, I’m going to give a brief description about Hash in order to give a clear understanding of the terms above.
Hash is a blockchain technology that employs the use of mathematical algorithm to collect an input data and convert it to and encrypted output data.
With the use of this special algorithm, it becomes impossible to crack of hack data that has been inputted and hence provides a secure output.
The hash technology can be used to secure data and privacy of transactions in the blockchain network.

Resistance to Collision: This is the property of Hash functions in which 2 different input does not provide the same output data. With this characteristic of the Hash function, it makes the security and reliability of the function much more assured by making it impossible for the data to be parsed of cracked.
The Resistance to Collision is assured in the newest hash function which is SHA-256 and this is because there is almost zero chance for a collision to occur since 2 different input data cannot produce the same output.

Resistance to Preimage: In this case, it is another characteristic of a Hash function which makes it difficult for people to find outputs that correspond to an input data. If this is not achieved, persons with bad intentions may use it as an opportunity to take advantage of others valuable information and harm them.
But with the help of Resistance to Preimage nobody will be able to find any connections linking an input and output.

Use tronscan and etherscan to verify the hash of the last block and the hash of that transaction.

Tronscan

1. Click on the link to open the tronscan website.
   
   Latest blocks and transactions can be pictured in the red box

2. Click on the latest block at the top to view its details.
   The block heights and Block hash can both be pictured in the red box.

3. Go to the homepage and select the latest transaction to view its details.
   Hash of the Transaction : 058fda1255076444ed34a6eeee715fe3372d2d447a58343b1e8a573ef44d0399

It can been seen in the black box.

Etherscan

1. Visit the etherscan website using the following link.
   
   Latest blocks and transactions can be seen in the box highlighted red.

2. Choose and click on the latest block to view its details.
   
   The block height is 12782827 and it is highlighted in yellow box

3. Scroll down and click on ‘See more’ to view other information about the block.
   
   The hash value can be pictured in the yellow box.
   Hash: 0xbb679ac705515e1595fe77edf703930b88391421e9075c36478a82a67cbbcdfa

4. Go back to the homepage and click on the latest transaction to view its details.
   
   Transactions Hash can be seen in the yellow box.

Transactions Hash: 0xdf384d2ca78eecba3bd760bfc068e437896c622df6f03de3daffc8bc338594bb

Block number: 12782827

Generate the hash using SHA-256 , from the word CryptoAcademy and from cryptoacademy. Screenshot required. Do you see any difference between the two words? Explain

1. Go the website SHA-256
   

2. Enter the provided information to be converted. In this case enter “CryptoAcademy” and “cryptoacademy” in different attempts and click on “Generate”.
   
   The image above shows the hash generated from the word ‘CryptoAcademy’
   
   The image above shows the hash generated from the word “cryptoacademy”

3. Copy down the generated hash.

Hash for “CryptoAcademy”: D03CA34B258E6E0FD06B2070DDE61B50BD4EEF6161A8EDAA4A420C9AE1BEB7F9

Hash for “cryptoacademy”: 0592F5DD27DC72E675B2AB9C77487A69FAAF84196597FA052EC099C18EE7C4C5

My observation.

There is a clear difference in the spelling of the two words with the first one having to capital letters in it and the other word contains just lower case letters. With this, the hash values generated from both words are different from each other ensuring that any small difference in an input can cause a different output.

This shows one characteristic of hash whereby two inputs of data have the same meaning but produces a different output and this another reason why hash is applied in blockchain to improve security in the blockchain network.

In your own words explain the difference between hash and cryptography.

Even though Hash and Cryptography both aim at improving security in the blockchain network, there are some differences that can be noted and below are some few differences:

Hashing	Cryptography
Length of the data in hashing is fixed	Length of data varies or in other words limitless and it is not fixed
Does not require keys for the data to be decrypted	Keys are required to decrypt data.
Very much secure since it does require any keys	Information can be compromised since keys can be misplaced
Hashing uses an algorithm to parse input to generate a non-traceable output	Cryptography uses private keys to create an encrypted input which requires the keys to decrypt the output information
Does not involve encryption and decryption of data	Requires encryption and decryption of data

To add more explanation to the above differences, I would say hashing aims at making output information almost impossible for attackers to correspond it to the input data. And cryptography aims at building the anonymity of users in the blockchain by a way of making information meaningless for attackers.

With this, they are both trying to build a secure environment in the blockchain that will keep value information of users safe and also improve the security of the blockchain technology making it reliable.

Conclusion

Hashing and cryptography are both wonderful features in the blockchain network that ensures the safety of users assets which makes it a reliable environment for traders. It also ensures anonymity and privacy, another feature of blockchain network that attracts a lot of investors.
Basically, application of hashing and cryptography play a very important role in maintaining a secure and suitable environment inside the blockchain network.

I want thank the professor @pelon53 for such an excellent lesson this week. Thank you for reading.