Since the GMT category is read-only I think this fits in best here, wouldn’t be surprised if it was moved to Off Topic or something.
If you do not have the files of GMTower anymore, you can stop reading here. Seriously. (See how I properly format the important parts? I mean it.) I still have them, I won’t ask for yours or offer mine without permission. I will not get banned because you decide to start another PixelTail Games Copyright Infringement drama here.
Storytime
So my harddrive is a mess and I want to reduce that mess by moving certain things to a permanent archive, including things that I might load up one day for teh nostalgias or in case I need it for any weird reason like checking where a screenshot was taken or idunno. I’m of course talking about the data for GMTower. In the form of GMA files from the workshop.
Since I’m a paranoid perfectionist (See my bio) I wanna avoid corrupted or outdated files so I’ve been trying to find a way to acquire cryptographic hashes of the files to check they’re okay before I archive them. Those hashes are strings of seemingly random data (Welcome to cryptography) that are the result of mathematical operations producing a kind of fingerprint for the file. That means the chance of any other file generating the exact same hash as this one is lower than GMT officially reopening. I can compare the hashes to these of my files and if they match, I can be quite sure it’s fine.
Now I could just offer you my hashes and ask you if they match your files but I don’t know if there’s any niche way out there to find and download files based on their hashes so I don’t want to basically unknowingly torrent my files.
I could just ask you for your hashes but that just seems shady, like I was on the other side of above situation. I may or may not have tried that with more or less success via PMs. *cough*
Recently I have come up with a compromise: Publish the hashes non-publicly using one of the more reliably correct hashes as the password. One of the files that aren’t still up on the workshop.
What do you want?
I would like to ask anyone who might have an archive of the GMT files like me to generate SHA1 hashes which only collide if they are PDF files SHA256 hashes of theirs and compare them to mine, then tell me if they match.
How do I do that?
The commands are rather simple for someone used to the CLI. Make sure to be navigated into a directory containing only the GMT GMAs.
To generate a file “sums.txt”, just execute:
sha256sum *.gma > sums.txt
To verify that a sums.txt contains hashes matching the files in that same directory, execute:
sha256sum -c sums.txt
I don’t have any of these commands! I’m on Windows!
It’s surely not the only way but I personally use cmder: http://cmder.net/
I tried to test the Microsoft tool but couldn’t manage to use it at all while wondering why you’d have to store the hashes in a XML file so I wouldn’t recommend that personally.
Okay give me those hashes of yours.
Generate the hash for “gmod_tower_ball_race_content_144365670.gma” and use it as the password on the following pastecryptobin:
Is that the best you can come up with?
Nope, no idea. If you know any better way to permanently archive the files, let me know.