A friend of mine an i were wondering the following
If there is really a one in 20 million chance of and two files having the same MD5 hash
in theory, would it not be possible to recreate a file from the MD5 hash itself?
I understand the time involved in doing this through the "rainbow tables" method, not to mention the processing power.
but with new processors coming out with 8 cores or so....
you see where this is going...
in theory, would it not be possible to recreate a file from the MD5 hash itself?
No. Hashing cant do that.
ay, still would be cool :P
its not possible though
thats not what a hash is. A hash is a totally arbitrary thing, its meaningless without a context with which to apply it to.
if we are going to be really technical, an MD5Sum isnt a type of hash at all, its a checksum, but the same thinking applies
Um, yes, it is a hash. Is hash not a synonym of checksum?
no hashes have a completely different meaning when used in the context of databases
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function
The first few paragraphs of this explain it
The differences explained there are a pedantic wikipedian classification system. Hashes, checksums, and cryptographic hashes are all the same thing and are all designed for the same general purpose. The only difference between a "good hash function" and a "good checksum function" and such is that different traits are valued more intensely.
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.