Re:We didn't encrypt your password, we hashed it
by sillysaurusx on Friday September 04, 2020 @06:32PM
(#24379552)
MD5 is broken, but HMAC-MD5 is still impossible to break afaik. And md5(pepper + md5(pw)) is basically HMAC.
Not commenting on the overall idea, just pointing out that the criticism of md5 happens not to be valid in this case. I was surprised too.
Re:We didn't encrypt your password, we hashed it
by hatsunearu on Friday September 04, 2020 @09:00PM
(#24380542)
The discussion of "MD5 collision resistance is bad, but md5 preimage resistance is still ok, so using md5 for applications where preimage resistance is required is ok" is I think completely valid (however pointless it is)
However for password hash functions to be useful they also need to have a high work factor to make brute forcing even more difficult.
Further, there’s so little reason not to salt, so you ought to do it. It’s built in to the hash strings in most modern pw hashes. Peppers are also a great idea. Defence in depth!