Building Enterprise JavaScript Applications

Hashing passwords

Generally speaking, a hashing function maps data of an arbitrary size (called a message, or initialization vectors) to data of a fixed size (called a digest):

const digest = MD5(message);

When used in a security context, a hashing algorithm is used to obfuscate a piece of information, such as a password.

For example, if we use the hashing function MD5 to hash the passphrases healer cam kebab poppy and peppermint green matcha ceylon, it will produce the hash digests b9f624315c5fb5dca09aa194091fccff and e6d4da56a185ff78721ab5cf07790a2c. Both digests have a fixed size of 128 bits (represented as hexadecimal) and both strings look pretty random. The MD5 algorithm also has the property of being deterministic, which means if we ...