Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!agate!linus!nixbur!nixpbe!uqun05!uqun38!teb From: teb@uqun38.nixdorf.de (Tobias Brueck) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc Subject: Re: how are password encryped? Message-ID: Date: 8 Nov 90 06:34:56 GMT References: <1990Nov5.185707.18709@nntp-server.caltech.edu> Sender: news@uqun05.nixdorf.de Lines: 26 gwoho@nntp-server.caltech.edu (g liu) writes: >i cant figure out how passwords are encrypted. it does not even seem >very deterministic: i can look in the password file, change my password, >change it back, and look again, and it changes. how are they encrypted, >and how can it even work if the same password encryptes differently >2 differnt times? >gwoho liu. It's very simple . The password encryption is a "one-way-encryption" . The first two letters of the encrypted password (EP) are used for more difference on the Data-Encryption-Standard (DES) . So you have 4096 (64*64) differnt kinds of the same EP . If you type in your password the software will use the first two letters of EP for encryption your password and compare to the old . If you type in a new and then the old password it will produced two new first letters by random . Hope that help , Tobias ****** I still havn't found , what I'm looking for ****** ============================================================================= | Tobias Brueck | Siemens-Nixdorf-Informationssysteme AG | WIF-382 | | D-W4790 Paderborn | Heinz-Nixdorf-Ring | Phone: inter-5251-10-5815 | | Federal Republic of Germany | Republique Federale d'Allemagne | ============================================================================= | europe: eunet : ..!unido!nixpbe!brueck.pad | brueck.pad@nixdorf.com... | | usa: usenet: ..!linus!nixbur!brueck.pad | | =============================================================================