Posted by Kailash Nadh on 11/26/07 04:42

On Nov 26, 4:08 am, Jerry Stuckle <jstuck...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> KailashNadhwrote:
> > 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,
> >KailashNadh
> >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.
>
> --
> ==================
> Remove the "x" from my email address
> Jerry Stuckle
> JDS Computer Training Corp.
> jstuck...@attglobal.net
> ==================

Ah, my mistake.

Regards,
Kailash Nadh
http://kailashnadh.name

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