
The idea is to define a reduction function R that maps hash values back into values in P. Hash chains are a technique for decreasing this space requirement. The simplest way to do this is compute H( p) for all p in P, but then storing the table requires Θ(|P| n) bits of space, where |P| is the size of the set P and n is the size of an output of H, which is prohibitive for large |P|. The goal is to precompute a data structure that, given any output h of the hash function, can either locate an element p in P such that H( p) = h, or determine that there is no such p in P.
#EASY FILL PRN SOFTWARE PASSWORD#
Suppose we have a password hash function H and a finite set of passwords P. Rainbow tables are a special kind of such table that overcome certain technical difficulties.įor hash chains other than what is mentioned here, see hash chain.

An alternative to brute-force is to use precomputed hash chain tables. dictionary attacks) may be used to try to invert a hash function, they can become infeasible when the set of possible passwords is large enough. This is the same as inverting the hash function. To learn a password from a hash is to find a string which, when input into the hash function, creates that same hash. (On the other hand, trying to use a hashed value as a password to log in would fail since the authentication system would hash it a second time.)

Authentication succeeds if the two hashes match. When a user enters a password for authentication, a hash is computed for it and then compared to the stored hash for that user. Thus, no one – including the authentication system – can learn a password merely by looking at the value stored in the database. Since passwords stored as plaintext are easily stolen if database access is compromised, databases typically store hashes instead.

For user authentication, passwords are stored either as plaintext or hashes.
