Robert Morris

If they are able to steal the hash list and they know what the formula is, they can perform the reverse operations to figure out the input password from the output hash, right? Number three, why not encrypt the master password database instead? Wouldn't that have solved the issue for the CTSS, for example? On to the answer, since, as the saying goes, you can't really make an omelet without first cracking some eggs.

Password hashing became a thing in the 1970s when Robert Morris, a cryptographer at Bell Labs, proposed its use for storing passwords for users of the Unix system in the infamous slash etc slash passwd file.

If you know, you know.

Morris knew that storing passwords in plain text in a system file was not a good idea, even if said file could only be accessed by a root user.

Because prime factorization is unique, no two distinct passwords will share the same final golden number hash.

Pretty cool, right? Except this method is also not cryptographically secure, since from the final hash you can easily go back to the original string if you just discovered the prime factors of the final hash number, and you know the password alphabet.

Meaning, Robert Morris' original plan of not storing password in plain text is basically not followed through here, since you simply traded 5 for the half of 10.

Therefore, when we talk about cryptographically safe hashes, we are talking about an algorithm that is able to reliably apply both of the principles of our two previous examples to an output hash.

It's Trevor Brackwell.

And it's I think Robert Morris.

And they're all like, basically they all ask us questions, same time, like all four of them.

And I was like, totally bewildered.