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Re:Password hack of vBulletin.com by kijin on Monday November 18, 2013 @10:21AM (#6754683)
In ordinary usage, "encrypt" means "to change information from one form to another, especially to hide its meaning" (Merriam-Webster). It doesn't necessarily mean reversible, although in programmer jargon it does.

So hashing is a subset of encrypting, just like crackers are a subset of hackers.

Re:Password hack of vBulletin.com by ReidZB on Monday November 18, 2013 @01:21PM (#6755836)
I'd think "ordinary usage" would be by cryptographers and other cryptography-related personnel, not laypeople. Most of the people around where I live don't even know what cryptography is, and it's hit-and-miss whether or not they've heard of encryption.

From a theoretical point of view, hash functions are not only a subset of block ciphers: hash functions and block ciphers are equivalent. You can take a hash function and build a block cipher from it (use a Feistel network). You can also take a block cipher and build a hash function from it (use the Merkle–Damgård construction).

But even if you can build one from the other, saying something is 'encrypted' implies, in even the meanest definition, that it can be decrypted. If the layperson definition does not include this aspect, then it is, well, wrong. Even if you disagree on this point, I would expect a tech journalist to endeavor to use the correct, field-standard terminology, regardless, because as Pxtl says, anyone who is familiar with even the basics of cryptography will interpret "encrypted password" in an incorrect way (i.e., they'll see it as what Adobe did).