Skip to Content
HTTP Developer’s Handbook
book

HTTP Developer’s Handbook

by Chris Shiflett
March 2003
Intermediate to advanced
312 pages
7h 12m
English
Sams
Content preview from HTTP Developer’s Handbook

Digest Authentication

Digest authentication mitigates the risk of exposing the username and password by utilizing a one-way cryptographic algorithm (also commonly called a hash or a message digest). These algorithms are called one-way algorithms because they are practically impossible to reverse. Although this might seem like a bold claim, consider that MD5 (Message Digest 5, a popular one-way algorithm) always returns a 128-bit digest. Thus, if you were to create a message digest of the text of this entire book, it would be 128 bits in length. If it were possible to generate the text of this entire book from a 128-bit message digest, MD5 would be an amazing compression algorithm!

Note

The fact that a message digest cannot be reversed does ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

HTTP: The Definitive Guide

HTTP: The Definitive Guide

David Gourley, Brian Totty, Marjorie Sayer, Anshu Aggarwal, Sailu Reddy
Designing Web APIs

Designing Web APIs

Brenda Jin, Saurabh Sahni, Amir Shevat
RESTful Web APIs

RESTful Web APIs

Leonard Richardson, Mike Amundsen, Sam Ruby

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0672324547Purchase book