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MD5 Passwords

It's very easy to create MD5 passwords with Python-

You just: 

   1 import hashlib
   2 
   3 key_string = raw_input( "Key to turn into an MD5 password? " )
   4 
   5 print hashlib.md5( key_string ).hexdigest()

ex: "robots" turns into "27f5e15b6af3223f1176293cd015771d"

The "hexdigest" form is the form you frequently find used in databases and in online forums. However, using MD5 for password storage is strongly discouraged. Please see the Security section for more information.

Salting

A good idea is to include a 'salt' with the hash as well, which will prevent people using a dictionary with md5 hashes of common passwords. When you check a password, just add the salt to the front of the password and hash it. The salt can be any random string.

Something like this: 

   1 import hashlib
   2 
   3 key_string = "SecretPassword"
   4 salt = "1Ha7"
   5 
   6 hash = hashlib.md5( salt + key_string ).hexdigest()
   7 print "%s:%s" % (salt, hash) # Store these

AnthonyBriggs

Security

Use caution when utilizing hashes for passwords. MD5 is no longer considered safe for password storage. Consider instead scrypt, bcrypt, or PBDKF2 utilizing 100,000 rounds or more.

Reference: https://gist.github.com/tqbf/be58d2d39690c3b366ad

See Also

Discussion

2026-02-14 16:09