md5

[Anon]

I know you can convert text to md5 using PHP, but how would i go about converting md5 back to understandable language??

Is it possible?

[[deleted]]

That's not possible, MD5 is one-way.

[gljaber]

You don't. It isn't possible.

It's one way encryption, a way to decrypt it doesn't exist (besides brute force, but that could take a while 😉 )

glj

[cordex]

As vincent says. It is one way.

For a long-winded explaination, check out

http://www.hvt-automation.nl/yapf/faq.php?cmd=viewitem&itemid=85

[factory21]

I don't think people realize that MD5 and SHA are NOT encryption methods. They're methods for producing statistically unique signatures, or abbreviations of data. Going backwards is IMPOSSIBLE. If it were possible, you'd have an amazing compression technology that could take an ARBITRARY length of data and compress it down to a FIXED length of data.

Because it reduces the amount of data, it is theoretically possible for two diffent inputs to yield the same output. The algorithm simply makes this very, VERY unlikely.

[[deleted]]

Indeed, another reason why I wonder why people think they can use MD5 as encryption is that MD5 does not take a password or anything. How can something be protected without using a password?

If no password is used to encrypt, then that must mean that no password is required to decrypt... then what's the point of encrypting? :-)