01-20-2023, 08:21 PM
dont know how johns maskattack is implemented but hashcat uses randomized/shuffled output when using mask attack,
just take a look at hashcat -a3 --stdout ?d?d?d?d, instead of trying plain 0000, 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on, hashcat runs like this 7793, 6793, 1273 ,0273 ,2273 and even when running the same command again the output differs from the first one
so the "right guess" could be anything between first bulk of candidates oder last bulk, the diff between how long it takes to guess the right pass is just pure random
just take a look at hashcat -a3 --stdout ?d?d?d?d, instead of trying plain 0000, 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on, hashcat runs like this 7793, 6793, 1273 ,0273 ,2273 and even when running the same command again the output differs from the first one
so the "right guess" could be anything between first bulk of candidates oder last bulk, the diff between how long it takes to guess the right pass is just pure random