i can't figure out how to use MD5()

[lawrence]

I do get that MD5() scrambles a password, but how do you then
unscrable it? I want to get $password from the user, scrable it, then
append it to every link.

[jkd]

The MD5 function can be use to encrypt a password, but there is no PHP
function to decrypt it. I suppose you could brute force an MD5 hash but then
why would you want to append that to a link?


"lawrence" <lkrubner@geocities.com> wrote in message
news:da7e68e8.0308171318.11a5282@posting.google.co m...

> I do get that MD5() scrambles a password, but how do you then
> unscrable it? I want to get $password from the user, scrable it, then
> append it to every link.

[James]

On 17 Aug 2003 14:18:09 -0700, [email]lkrubner@geocities.com[/email] (lawrence) scrawled:

>I do get that MD5() scrambles a password, but how do you then
>unscrable it? I want to get $password from the user, scrable it, then
>append it to every link.

MD5 isn't an encryption algorithm - it is a checksum algorithm - and
so is designed to be one way (it's actually a many - one algorithm) so
two passwords may check sum to the same value (although) this is unlikely
for such short strings.

Baggy

[Andy Hassall]

On 17 Aug 2003 14:18:09 -0700, [email]lkrubner@geocities.com[/email] (lawrence) wrote:

>I do get that MD5() scrambles a password, but how do you then
>unscrable it?

You don't, it's impossible.

You store the MD5 of the password. Then when a password is entered in the
future, you MD5 that and compare it with the previously stored MD5. If they
match, the passwords match. Part of the idea of this is that the original
password isn't stored, so even if the table was read by crackers the passwords
wouldn't be revealed.

--
Andy Hassall (andy@andyh.co.uk) icq(5747695) ([url]http://www.andyh.co.uk[/url])
Space: disk usage analysis tool ([url]http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space[/url])