99. Glossary of Cryptographic Terms: MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm #5)
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This article is from the PGP FAQ, by Jeff Licquia jalicqui@prairienet.org with numerous contributions by others.
99. Glossary of Cryptographic Terms: MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm #5)
The message digest algorithm used in PGP is the MD5 Message Digest
Algorithm, placed in the public domain by RSA Data Security, Inc.
MD5's designer, Ronald Rivest, writes this about MD5:
"It is conjectured that the difficulty of coming up with two messages
having the same message digest is on the order of 2^64 operations, and
that the difficulty of coming up with any message having a given
message digest is on the order of 2^128 operations. The MD5 algorithm
has been carefully scrutinized for weaknesses. It is, however, a
relatively new algorithm and further security analysis is of course
justified, as is the case with any new proposal of this sort. The
level of security provided by MD5 should be sufficient for implementing
very high security hybrid digital signature schemes based on MD5 and
the RSA public-key cryptosystem."
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