4 ms·
Yes it would be possible because MD5 has been broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Collision_vulnerabilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Collision_vu
by Danieru 13y ago
Yes it would be possible because MD5 has been broken: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Collision_vulnerabilities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Collision_vulnerabilities
Any file can be modified to result in a hash collision with a specific MD5. This makes is unsuitable for its stated purpose as a cryptographic hash.
The solution would be to use a newer and stronger hash like Keccak.
A solution similar to what you are thinking of is already used by Bittorrent's Distributed Hash Table to identify files.
- gojomo 13y agoTo be precise, while MD5 has been 'broken' in the sense of not meeting its design goals for a long time, and there are now a number of scenarios where attackers can create pairs of files with the same MD5, it is not yet practically possible to create a collision for any arbitrary file (such as jquery.js) on demand. That would be the total 'preimage vulnerability' as mentioned at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Preimage_vulnerability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5#Preimage_vulnerability MD5 should absolutely not be used for this content-identification purpose or any other new code... and wise designers haven't been using it for 10+ years. I'm just mentioning this to be precise about the current state of its proven weaknesses.