[wp-hackers] Wordpress Event Viewer Plugin

[Peter Westwood]

Computer Guru wrote:
> Yes they do....
> 
> MD5 *is* technically an encryption scheme. And yes, with the help of rainbow tables, it can be decrypted - but it is never stored in plain text anywhere in a vanilla copy.
> 

No it is not.  MD5 is technically a compression scheme. It is a one way 
hash i.e. you cannot reverse the conversion function f(password) = hash.

For it to be an encryption scheme there must be an equivalent function 
g(hash) = password.

Rainbow tables do not allow you to decrypt the MD5 hash as it has not 
been encrypted all they allow you to do is identify one of the set of 
plaintexts which compress to the hash string.

westi
-- 
Peter Westwood
http://blog.ftwr.co.uk