It wouldn't matter if the preimage of the hash were needed for authentication. Because, if a device has all of the information needed to connect to a network o

It wouldn't matter if the preimage of the hash were needed for authentication. Because, if a device has all of the information needed to connect to a network on it, then.. well, it has all of the information needed to connect to a network on it. Could be passwords, hashes, or whatever -- doesn't really matter.