Spring Security - Third Edition

MD5

MD5 is one of the several well-known cryptographic hash algorithms. Cryptographic hash algorithms compute a compact and unique text representation of input data with arbitrary length, called a digest. This digest can be used to determine if an untrusted input should be trusted by comparing the digest of the untrusted input to a known valid digest of the expected input.

The following diagram illustrates how this works:

For example, many open source software sites allow mirrors to distribute their software to help increase download speeds. However, as a user of the software, we would want to be sure that the software is authentic and doesn't ...