*BSD News Article 94158


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From: hot@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de (Holger Trapp)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.security.unix
Subject: Re: how MD5 works
Date: 22 Apr 97 11:28:26 GMT
Organization: University of Technology Chemnitz, FRG
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"Jian L. Zhen" <jlz@isli.com> writes:

>I read thru some material for MD5 and it seems that MD5, as a one-way hash
>function, will generate the same results with the same input everytime.
>am I correct?

Yes. Otherwise it would be no one-way hash function.

> is there anything in algorithm that might make the result
>variable each time?

No. If you change the algorithm then you have a different function and no
longer MD5. To get a variable output with MD5 you need a variable input each
time.


Holger