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Full Discussion: Why use strong passwords?
Special Forums Cybersecurity Why use strong passwords? Post 302727029 by Neo on Monday 5th of November 2012 02:00:16 PM
Old 11-05-2012
Here is one quick reference about salt:

Quote:
Obviously, the use of salting does not necessarily improve the strength of the encryption. In fact, especially since the mechanism of DEA is not well understood by cryptanalysts who do not have access to classified files explaining the algorithm, it is possible that salting may have weakened the encryption process.
Frankly, many years ago, I worked on a project to help NIST in the US evaluate the AES algorithm. I even wrote a paper on the topic; but it was not published (public).

Crypto is math, and computing power... and the state of the art changes as computing power changes. What was a great crypto algorithm for the processing power of 10 years ago is just weak "history" today, and the same is true for the crypto today, when we fast forward 10 or more years.

Edit: Anyway, this is mostly "abstract" because when discussing cryptography, we should really not speak in sweeping generalizations; but focus on the exact algorithms, hash functions, length of keys, salt, method of storing both cryptographics hashes and salt, etc.
 

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md5crypt(n)						   MD5-based password encryption					       md5crypt(n)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NAME
md5crypt - MD5-based password encryption SYNOPSIS
package require Tcl 8.2 package require md5 2.0 package require md5crypt ?1.1.0? ::md5crypt::md5crypt password salt ::md5crypt::aprcrypt password salt ::md5crypt::salt ?length? _________________________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION
This package provides an implementation of the MD5-crypt password encryption algorithm as pioneered by FreeBSD and currently in use as a replacement for the unix crypt(3) function in many modern systems. An implementation of the closely related Apache MD5-crypt is also avail- able. The output of these commands are compatible with the BSD and OpenSSL implementation of md5crypt and the Apache 2 htpasswd program. COMMANDS
::md5crypt::md5crypt password salt Generate a BSD compatible md5-encoded password hash from the plaintext password and a random salt (see SALT). ::md5crypt::aprcrypt password salt Generate an Apache compatible md5-encoded password hash from the plaintext password and a random salt (see SALT). ::md5crypt::salt ?length? Generate a random salt string suitable for use with the md5crypt and aprcrypt commands. SALT
The salt passed to either of the encryption schemes implemented here is checked to see if it begins with the encryption scheme magic string (either "$1$" for MD5-crypt or "$apr1$" for Apache crypt). If so, this is removed. The remaining characters up to the next $ and up to a maximum of 8 characters are then used as the salt. The salt text should probably be restricted the set of ASCII alphanumeric characters plus "./" (dot and forward-slash) - this is to preserve maximum compatability with the unix password file format. If a password is being generated rather than checked from a password file then the salt command may be used to generate a random salt. EXAMPLES
% md5crypt::md5crypt password 01234567 $1$01234567$b5lh2mHyD2PdJjFfALlEz1 % md5crypt::aprcrypt password 01234567 $apr1$01234567$IXBaQywhAhc0d75ZbaSDp/ % md5crypt::md5crypt password [md5crypt::salt] $1$dFmvyRmO$T.V3OmzqeEf3hqJp2WFcb. BUGS, IDEAS, FEEDBACK This document, and the package it describes, will undoubtedly contain bugs and other problems. Please report such in the category md5crypt of the Tcllib SF Trackers [http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=12883]. Please also report any ideas for enhancements you may have for either package and/or documentation. SEE ALSO
md5 KEYWORDS
hashing, md5, md5crypt, message-digest, security CATEGORY
Hashes, checksums, and encryption COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2003, Pat Thoyts <patthoyts@users.sourceforge.net> md5crypt 1.1.0 md5crypt(n)
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