MD5 is a message-digest algorithms developed by RSA (Rivest). It is meant for digital signature applications where a large message has to be ``compressed'' in a secure manner before being signed with the private key. It take a message of arbitrary length and produce a 128-bit message digest.
MD5 is a 1-way hash algorithm. It's more secure in the sense that the Hash collisions are harder to occur. The brute-force password attack is attack that is algorithm independent. One can crank out MD5 digests from a dictionary and see if the digest matches the one that's stored on the server. -----Original Message----- From: scott.list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: MD5 passwd vs. Std crypt Can someone tell me what the advantage and disadvantages of using MD5 passwords are? Is it just stronger encryption? Does it make it harder to run a brute force dictionary crack on a password file harder? Does it require more resources if you have thousands of password lookups going on in a short time frame? Thanks very much for any insignt or pointers. Scott _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
