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Date:      Mon, 3 May 1999 12:02:44 +1000
From:      Peter Jeremy <peter.jeremy@auss2.alcatel.com.au>
To:        adam@homeport.org
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Blowfish/Twofish
Message-ID:  <99May3.114810est.40331@border.alcanet.com.au>

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Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org> wrote:
>The reason to not use it for passwords is that the function you want
>(if you're going to not change the model), is a hash function, not a
>block cipher.

You'd better let Bob Morris know this :-).

Why can't a block cipher (like, say DES) be used for a password
hashing function?  (I realise that the DES used for Unix password
hashing is `tweaked', but that was done solely to prevent people using
off-the-shelf DES hardware to crack passwords - the salt can be
injected in several other ways).

The MD5 description includes a simple algorithm for taking an
arbitrary string of bits and feeding it though a block hash function.
Exactly the same can be done with a block cipher.

Peter


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