NeatNit wrote:Can someone explain rainbow tables real fast? I've tried reading the wikipedia article like 10 times but I just have no clue what it's yapping on about...
First, let's remember what a Hash is: It's a value (that is, a sequence of bits) computed using a one-way algorythm on an entry value (usually a string, like a password). Usually, each "hashing algorythm" produces a fixed-length hash. The "one-way" is the key, because it garanty that one cannot reverse the hash to find the original entry.
So, if you can't reverse the algo, you have to "guess" the entry. And since people are humans, they tend to use bad password like words, maybe with numbers, or combination of words, etc. And they tend to use "short" password. The idea is then to build a gigantic table of entries with their hash. So, when we get a hash, we may look into the table to see if it's a known one. In more than 90% of the cases, it will be, since most people use common password.