SHA-1 and MD5 BruteForce in Python 3.7

Question

I've made a python program that can brute-force both MD5 and SHA1 hashes, and I would like know if I could make the program faster or any way I could improve it. I'm still a beginner in python and in coding in general (this program is only for learning purposes).

The code:

import time
import string
import hashlib
ready = False
start = time.time()
chars = list(string.printable)[:95]
base = len(chars)
n = 0
hashmethod = 0
password = ""
solved = False
quit = ""
while ready != True:
    password = input("Enter a valid MD5 or SHA-1 hash:")

if len(password) == 32:
    ready = True
elif len(password) == 40:
    ready = True
    hashmethod = 2
else:
    continue


def numberToBase(n, b):  # converts number N base 10 to a list of digits base b
    digits = []
    while n:
        digits.append(int(n % b))
        n //= b
    return digits[::-1]


# check edge cases like empty, or 0
if password == '':
    print('Your password is empty')
    solved = True

# begin systematically checking passwords
while not solved:
    lst = numberToBase(n, base)
    word = ''
    for x in lst:
        word += str(chars[x])
    if hashmethod == 2:
        hashedGuess = hashlib.sha1(bytes(word, 'utf-8')).hexdigest()

    else:
        hashedGuess = hashlib.md5(bytes(word, 'utf-8')).hexdigest()
        print(word)
    if password == hashedGuess:
        solved = True
        print('-Stats-')
        print('Pass: ' + word)
        print('Attempts: ' + str(n))
        print('time: ' + str((time.time() - start)) + ' sec')
        while quit != " QUIT":
            quit = input('Type <QUIT> to quit')
    else:
        n += 1

Answer 1

For hash brute-forcing, the short answer is "don't do it in Python". You'll get massive performance gains in switching to C or C++.

Since this is for learning purposes, reviewing your Python:

• For legibility, add a newline between your imports and your code.
• Consider putting your global-scope code into a main() function plus subdividing some of the code into other functions.
• Does your code actually run? You have a loop on ready, but you don't modify its value, so I think it's going to hang there. I suspect that you've broken your loop's indentation, and that some statements below belong in the loop.
• Instead of setting ready to later break out of the loop, you can simply break. You can get rid of your else/continue.