If you have not already, read the man page on the crypt function. Use this function, web resources, and possibly department computational resources to mount an attack on the encrypted passwords in the file password11_cipher.txt. Many of these passwords are poorly chosen, i.e. they are short, or one or more words, or names, or minor variations thereof, or potentially guessable because they are TOOOO clever, or the prof. repeats himself, or all of the above. (No guarantees about only lowercase letters being present though). See how many you can find out of the list of 140.
Stealing or sharing classmates results is specifically disallowed in this assignment, as is cracking the professor's account. Use of fully canned password crackers is discouraged, as are pre-encrypted dictionaries (although it could be interesting to compare how well you do with the performance of canned cracker). Use of text dictionary resources on the other hand, is encouraged, and probably necessary to complete the assignment in a timely fashion.
As usual, document all of the resources you use. Note that the crypt function does not run all that fast (deliberately), so you may have to allow considerable time for your program to run. Or you may be able to find a faster version of crypt. Note that other class members will be running their programs in the same period, so don't count on having exclusive access to the cluster or SMP resources. Also, if you bog down real research computation, there will be blood...
On Wednesday, you will give a short presentation to the class describing your approach(es) and results. As usual, hand in a written report.
BTW, in June 2012 a large encrypted PW file was stolen from LinkedIN. 8-Character passwords had been encrypted WITHOUT SALT using MD5. The attackers quickly broke all 7 Million passwords they had, and published them on the internet. Clearly someone did not take this class...