Behind a password gate on this site sits a set of instructions. The key to open it is a real English word — seven letters, picked from the everyday dictionary, drawn from a 62-symbol charset (A–Z, a–z, 0–9).
The intended route is to solve the puzzle over at showmeyour.skin — a layered steganographic challenge that, if you follow it correctly, hands you the password directly. No GPU required. Just eyes, patience, and a terminal.
But this is the internet. You do what you want.
Maybe cleverness isn't your thing. Maybe you have iron to throw at this. Here's exactly how long it takes to crack a 7-character SHA-256 key space, at various levels of compute flex:
| Hardware / Setup | SHA-256 Rate | Time to Crack | Vibe Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single CPU core (no SIMD) | 10–30 MH/s | 1.5 – 4 days | Annoying but doable. Dedication points: high. |
| Desktop CPU (12–16 cores, AVX2) | 200–500 MH/s | 2 – 5 hours | Weekend project. Not a lifetime commitment. |
| RTX 4090 | 8–12 GH/s | 5 – 9 minutes | Basically trivial. Kettle hasn't boiled yet. |
| 8× RTX 4090 rig | 64–96 GH/s | 40 – 70 seconds | Instantaneous from an attacker's POV. |
| 100× A100/H100 cloud farm | 1–2 TH/s | 2 – 4 seconds | Rounds to "free". |
| Nation-state / ASIC / large botnet | 10–100 TH/s+ | < 1 second | Already gone before you asked. |
Got a 4090? A rack of rented cloud GPUs? A botnet you definitely don't run? This is your shot at the no-brain-required speedrun. Throw compute at it — it'll crack.
But then what? The page on the other side has steps. Will you be able to follow them handed a password on a platter? And is the dopamine hit really worth the electricity bill?
Two paths. One requires a brain, patience, and a careful read of showmeyour.skin. The other requires a GPU (or several) and zero shame.
Both get you through the door. Whether you can handle what's inside either way — that's a different question entirely.
Good hunting.