Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 11/26/07 04:08

Kailash Nadh wrote:
> On Nov 23, 7:13 pm, Toby A Inkster <usenet200...@tobyinkster.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> Rik Wasmus wrote:
>>> You can't decrypt/decode it though (well, at least not practically).
>> Well, you can't at all, because for any given MD5 hash, there are infinite
>> possible inputs which could have generated it. So even if you manage to
>> find an input which produces that value as its output (which is more or
>> less an enormous brute-force search), you can't be sure that it's the same
>> as the original input.
>>
>> --
>> Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
>> [Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
>> [OS: Linux 2.6.17.14-mm-desktop-9mdvsmp, up 1 day, 9 min.]
>>
>> It'll be in the Last Place You Look
>> http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/11/21/no2id/
>
>
> Toby, I think you are mistaken.
> In theory, every md5 hash is unique. An md5 hash is bound to a single
> unique input. If a brute-force matches a has, THAT is the original
> input.
>
> Regards,
> Kailash Nadh
> http://kailashnadh.name
>

(Top posting fixed)

Wrong. A MD5 hash results in a 32 byte value. Theoretically there are
a (near) infinite number of hashes which can be resolved to a the same
hash. If it were unique, it would be the best compression algorithm
known to programmers.

And please don't top post. Thanks.


--
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Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
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