As someone else mentioned, MD5 has been known to be broken since 1996, but I'll assume you meant something like SHA-256 or SHA3-256. I haven't looked closely a

As someone else mentioned, MD5 has been known to be broken since 1996, but I'll assume you meant something like SHA-256 or SHA3-256. I haven't looked closely at the code, but the author of the article speculates that the code was implemented by people who are unfamiliar with cryptography. I think that's a pretty reasonable explanation. Cryptography looks deceptively simple, but it's actually a complex and specialized field that takes years to get good at. Even experts in the field routinely build cryptosystems that are later discovered to be flawed. After all, they're building roadblocks that are designed to prevent everyone---even well-funded experts from the future---from finding a clever way around. Oh, and while they're at it, they have to consider CPU and RAM constraints, too. Many developers don't treat crypto with the respect that it demands, and, unfortunately for end-users, this is the result.