Message Digest algorithm number 5 - MD5 is a
cryptography method used to produce a representation of the original
plain text that cannot be easily reversed (i.e. it can not be
decrypted). It is codified as an
Internet standard in
RFC 1321
MD5 is usually used to
encrypt stored passwords for web applications. It provides a medium to high level of security. It is used by
SSL, GPC, and Kerberos authentication standards.
The odds of producing any message having a given message digest produced with MD5 is on the order of 2^128.
MD5 was developed by Professor Ronald L. Rivest of MIT in 1991 and released to the public domain. For programmers, there are currently many open source code implementations of MD5 available, including the following:
