> Not very likely, since the OP wouldn’t be able to hash it.
Not necessarily. OP might have found the answer with a mathematical short-cut.
To give a really silly example: suppose my hash function just returns the length of the input string. (That's what PHP used to do for hashing at some point.)
I could tell you what my hash of a really big number is, without needing to be able to write that number down. And no shorter number would have the same hash.
SHA256 might have a similar exploit. (Though as you say finding such a shortcut in SHA256 would be much more awesome than Passwordle.)
Not necessarily. OP might have found the answer with a mathematical short-cut.
To give a really silly example: suppose my hash function just returns the length of the input string. (That's what PHP used to do for hashing at some point.)
I could tell you what my hash of a really big number is, without needing to be able to write that number down. And no shorter number would have the same hash.
SHA256 might have a similar exploit. (Though as you say finding such a shortcut in SHA256 would be much more awesome than Passwordle.)