Some well-known hash algorithms with a 160-bit output:
Both SHA-1 and SHA-0 use a 160-bit hash value. Note that "SHA-0" is a retronym for the original SHA hash algorithm. SHA-1 corrected some significant flaws in the original algorithm that yielded some serious security weakness. The TIGER hash algorithm is designed to use a 192-bit hash, but also has the capability to use 160-bit and 128-bit hash values. The HAVAL algorithm can produce hashes in lengths of 128 bits, 160 bits, 192 bits, 224 bits, and 256 bits. One version of the RIPEMD algorithm, RIPEMD-160, has a 160-bit hash. Other versions of RIPEMD, RIPEMD-128, RIPEMD-256, and RIPEMD-320, use 128, 256, and 320-bit hashes respectively. Of these, the most common is probably SHA-1, which is available on most Windows based machines.
The number of bits used in hash values varies by algorithm. For example, the MD5 algorithm produces a 128-bit hash, SHA-1 generates a 160-bit hash, and SHA-256 outputs a 256-bit hash. Each algorithm is designed to provide a different level of security and collision resistance, with longer hashes generally offering greater security.
SHA-0A retronym applied to the original version of the 160-bit hash function published in 1993 under the name "SHA". It was withdrawn shortly after publication due to an undisclosed "significant flaw" and replaced by the slightly revised version SHA-1.SHA-1 A 160-bit hash function which resembles the earlier MD5 algorithm. This was designed by the National Security Agency (NSA) to be part of the Digital Signature Algorithm.RIPEMMD-160Race Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest is a 160-bit message digest hash algorithm developed in Belgium by Dobbertin, Bosselaers, and Preneel at the COSIC research group at the Katholieke Univeriteit Leuven, and first published in 1996. It is an improved version of RIPEMD, which in turn was based upon the design principles used in MD4, and is similar in performance to the more popular SHA-1.Tiger-160Tiger is a hash function designed by Anderson and Biham in 1995 for efficiency on 64-bit platforms. The size of a Tiger hash value is 192 bits. Truncated versions (known as Tiger/128 and Tiger/160) can be used for compatibility with protocols assuming a particular hash size.
MD5
MD5 (like SHA-1 or CRC32) is a common message-digest algorithm for data integrity. MD5 is widely used as a cryptographic hash function producing a 128-bit (16-byte) hash value or checksum, typically expressed in text format as a 32 digit hexadecimal number (e.g. 90506d869e65e896d5a8474b00097610). This essentially is a way to digitally sign a block of text or media to prevent tampering or modification. A receiver can calculate the md5 hash value independently to verify the contents match the expected hash value. If a different hash value is computed then the content has been changed from the original. The newer SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 algorithms respectively generate a 160-bit, 256-bit, and 512-bit hash value for greater security.
The SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm) family includes various algorithms with different output sizes. For example, SHA-1 produces a 160-bit hash, while SHA-256 generates a 256-bit hash. The term "block" in the context of these algorithms generally refers to the size of the input data that is processed at one time, which is 512 bits for SHA-1 and 512 bits for SHA-256 as well. Therefore, the block size for SHA-1 and SHA-256 is 512 bits.
You are probably referring to the MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm which is a widely used cryptographic hash function that produces 128-bit (16-byte) hash values. A hash function is an algorithm that takes a block of data and creates a string of data (hash) of fixed length. By running the algorithm on a received block of data, a user should be able to detect whether the data has been altered because a given block of data should always yield the same hash unless it has been altered. Ideally a hash function will allow easy computation of the hash value for any given message but make it hard to start with the hash value and come up with a message that will yield that hash value. It should also be so difficult to modify a message without changing the hash that the time and effort necessary to do it exceeds the value of doing it and extremely difficult or impractical to find two different messages with the same hash. Note that by its nature the MD5 hash is not supposed to allow you to recover the message that was processed. Usually when we use the word "encryption" we are talking about a process where a message is converted to something called "cyphertext" which is unreadable unless you have the right algorithm and key to decrypt it and convert it back to the original message. In this respect it is more accurate to refer to "MD5 hashing" rather than MD5 encryption. See the attached link for more details on the MD5 hash.
We never store passwords in a password field. If we did that, anyone with access to the database would have access to all the passwords. Instead, we store the output from a one-way cryptographic hashing function. That is, when a user creates a password, we store the hash value generated from that password via the hashing function. When the user subsequently enters their password in order to log on, the hash value generated by the entered password is compared with the stored hash value. If the two hash values match exactly then the correct password was entered. Being one-way, it is not possible to determine the password from the hash value, even if we know the precise implementation details of the hash function employed to create the hash value. This is the safest way to store passwords; we simply need to ensure that the same hash function that was used to generate the hash is also used to validate the user's password at logon. Cryptographic hashes can vary in length depending on which function was used to generate the hash value. Typical values are 128-bit, 160-bit, 256-bit and 512-bit, thus a fixed-length binary field of the required length would be suitable for storing the hash values.
Hashing is a process that transforms input data of any size into a fixed-size string of characters, typically a sequence of numbers and letters, which serves as a unique identifier for the original data. Two common hash functions are MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm 5) and SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit). MD5 produces a 128-bit hash value, commonly used for checksums and data integrity verification, but is considered weak against collision attacks. SHA-256, part of the SHA-2 family, generates a 256-bit hash and is widely used in security applications, including digital signatures and blockchain technology, due to its higher security level.
D: md5
MD5
Hash algorithms are functions that take an input and produce a fixed-size string of characters, which is typically a digest that represents the input data. MD5 and SHA-1 are specific types of cryptographic hash algorithms; however, they differ in terms of security and collision resistance. MD5 produces a 128-bit hash value and is considered insecure due to vulnerabilities that allow for collision attacks. SHA-1, while more secure than MD5 with a 160-bit hash, has also been found to be susceptible to collision attacks, leading to its decline in usage in favor of more secure algorithms like SHA-256.