Lucky Spin: Godly Programming-Chapter 42: Explaining 2

"This is amazing. Everything is well built. You are truly the smartest student I have ever seen in my entire life," he said with a sigh.

"I am not bragging about this, since even I, as a teacher, feel unskilled in front of you. There are many parts of the code that I do not understand, and your way of coding is leaps ahead of your peers." Dela Cruz glanced at him as Jeff listened seriously.

Seeing his expression, he nodded inwardly, as there was no hint of arrogance in his look.

"You have a bright future ahead of you," he said, making Jeff blush at the praise.

Noticing his reaction, Dela Cruz almost laughed, giving him a look of amusement.

"Alright, smart kid, but tell me this. Did you add any kind of ownership verification to your app?" he asked.

"What if someone claims tomorrow, or even at any time in the future, that they made it? How can you prove it is really yours?" he finished.

Jeff then responded with a light smile, "Don’t worry, teacher. I was prepared for that,"

"They will not be able to, since there is something built into the system, a way to prove who the real creator is."

"Oh, care to tell me what it is?" Dela Cruz asked, feeling curious.

"Well, it is not something you can simply find by looking at the code directly. The verification is well hidden and was encrypted by me within the app," Jeff explained confidently.

He then raised a finger.

"First, the system listens for a special input sequence, which is the developer phrase. It is not just any text input. It has to be entered into a specific console prompt that I built into the debug mode," Jeff explained.

"Debug mode? But I did not see any debug option," Dela Cruz replied, looking confused.

"You asked how I can prove this is really my work, right?" Jeff mentioned what his teacher again as he began.

He smiled lightly as he closed the currently running decompiled APK and properly relaunched the actual app on the computer.

After all, if they were only looking at the decompiled code or the unpacked folder, it was like examining the blueprint rather than observing the running system itself.

As the app opened, and with just a few clicks on the keyboard (CTRL + SHIFT+ D), something appeared on the screen.

...

csharp

[DEVELOPER DEBUG MODE ACTIVATED]

Please enter the Developer Verification Phrase:

...

"As you can see here, it only activates when a specific keystroke pattern is entered within the first ten seconds of launch. Without it, the system will not even reveal that the debug console exists," Jeff explained.

Just to clarify, although Jeff wrote Genesis AI in Python, the appearance of the debug mode closely resembled what you might expect from a program written in C#.

That is because the style of the messages, such as the use of square brackets and uppercase status lines, is a common formatting practice among developers across various programming languages, especially in C#, Java, or even Bash scripts.

However, this style is not limited to any single programming language. Even in Python, one could simply write:

print("[DEVELOPER DEBUG MODE ACTIVATED]") - to achieve the same effect.

In the end, it is not about the programming language used. It is simply about how the developer chooses to format the message.

And this is what Jeff had chosen.

...

csharp

[DEVELOPER DEBUG MODE ACTIVATED]

...

C# (pronounced "C-Sharp") is a programming language developed by Microsoft, and was first released in the early 2000s.

It was designed to be simple, modern, and powerful, resembling Java or C++ but offering an easier approach for developing Windows applications, games, and server-side software.

It is widely recognized as the preferred language for creating Windows desktop applications, including executable programs.

It is also commonly used in game development, particularly with the Unity Game Engine, as well as in backend systems and web applications through the use of ASP.NET.

Additionally, it is often chosen for developing tools and utilities, such as console-based debugging programs.

Jeff, who was already well-versed in programming, intentionally styled the debug output in this way.

This kind of message formatting appears clear and professional.

It is easily noticeable to anyone using the console, as many developers, especially in the industry, follow this pattern to make system logs easier to read and interpret.

So, while the output may resemble what you might see in C#, the logic behind it is still powered by Python.

"Once inside the debug console, you have to input my private verification phrase. But even then, it does not simply display the inputted text," Jeff explained calmly.

His fingers hovered above the keyboard. Without rushing, he began typing the verification phrase: genesis unlocked.

He typed at such a fast speed that his hands appeared as a blur in Dela Cruz’s eyes.

However, what appeared on the monitor was nothing but a blank screen, it was completely empty.

The reason for this was simple, and it was not a mistake. The blank output was intentional by design.

In systems where security truly matters, especially in developer consoles or ownership verification tools, revealing even the slightest hint of what is being typed could be dangerous.

Attackers might be able to guess the length of the phrase by counting the asterisks or placeholders.

Even worse, someone simply watching over your shoulder could steal the key by observing the input process.

So instead of displaying stars, dots, or any characters, the input is silently captured in the background.

The phrase is received, processed, and hashed, yet the screen remains completely blank throughout the process.

This approach is known as blind input mode, a technique sometimes used in high-security systems to prevent shoulder surfing or brute-force analysis based on input length.

"The phrase triggers a hash generator using SHA-256 encryption, which combines the input with an internal salt key embedded in the app," Jeff explained.

"If the hash matches the signature I created during the build process, the system will then reveal the true ownership metadata. This includes the developer ID, build date, and verification token," he continued to explain.

SHA-256 encryption is not something Jeff invented, to be clear. It is a standard cryptographic algorithm, created by the NSA and published by NIST in 2001, and it is widely used across the world for secure data protection.

Jeff does not directly store the phrase genesis unlocked inside the app. If he did, anyone could simply decompile the app and steal the phrase.

Instead, Jeff takes the phrase and mixes it with a secret salt, which acts like an additional password known only to him.

Why? Because cryptography is not just about coding it is rooted in advanced mathematics and complex logic.

A single small mistake. such as weak randomness, predictable patterns, or poor key generation, can completely compromise the security of the entire system.

That is why most security experts recommend using well-tested algorithms like AES, SHA-256, bcrypt, and others.

These algorithms have been thoroughly reviewed, tested, and challenged by thousands of professionals over many years, so relying on them is considered the safest approach.

But that kind of pathetic excuse was only used by ordinary programmers, even by those considered experts.

Because Jeff is different. He holds the skill of a godly programmer. He fully understands the risks involved and possesses the capability to create something far more advanced if he truly desired.

However, for now, he has no reason to go that far.

For the salt, it acts as an extra hidden password that is already embedded within the program’s code.

Jeff does not manually type the salt during verification it was the system that automatically added it in the background.

Hashing, in this context, works by taking the combination of the phrase and the salt and transforming it into a long string of secret code made up of numbers and letters.

However, you cannot reverse this process to recover the original phrase.

Hashing is a one-way function. It is like putting ingredients into a blender, you cannot separate them back into their original parts once they have been mixed.

To understand it clearly, the salt is not the security by itself.

The purpose of the salt is to ensure that even if two people use the exact same phrase, their resulting hashes will still be different.

The salt also protects against rainbow table attacks, which are methods where hackers use pre-generated lists of hashes to quickly find matches.

By adding a unique salt, these lists become useless.

In this process, the phrase is the actual key, while the salt makes that key unique and unpredictable, greatly strengthening the overall security.

For the hash, it functions like locking a door in such a way that even if hackers fully understand how the lock works, they still cannot easily guess the correct key.

This is the strength of hashing algorithms like SHA-256. They do not hide the process, they make guessing the right input practically impossible due to the vast number of possible combinations.

So even if someone decompiled the app, just like what Dela Cruz had done, and managed to find the salt within the code and also saw the stored hash created during the build process, it would still not be enough.

Without the exact original phrase, they would face an almost impossible task of trying to recreate the correct input to match the hash.

They still cannot reverse the hash back into the original phrase, no matter how much of the system they analyze or decompile.

The only way to unlock it is by typing the exact correct phrase and that is something only Jeff knows.

If the phrase is long, complex, and unpredictable, no amount of guessing or brute-force attempts will succeed within any reasonable time.

Now, imagine if some stupid dude used a phrase like 12345.

Such a simple and common input would be easy to guess, making the entire security mechanism useless no matter how strong the hashing algorithm is.

Even with a salt, if the phrase is weak or too simple, a hacker might still break it in seconds. ƒreewebɳovel.com

However, if the phrase is something like genesis-unlocked-creator-verified 2025-true, it becomes nearly impossible to guess either by accident or through brute-force methods.

That is, of course, only an example but it shows how true security depends not just on the tools used, like hashing or salting, but also on the strength and unpredictability of the phrase itself.

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