Evan,
Your post got me curious so I found something here:
http://www.ciphersbyritter.com/GLOSSARY.HTM#Salt
In there it says something about salting a mine with nuggets. It also
says something about salting a dictionary with invented words. Well,
I'm not a miner, and I don't understand the dictionary thing either, but
maybe this gets us one step closer to understanding where this term
comes from.
Phillip
On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 05:53:21PM -0700, Evan McNabb wrote:
> First of all, this message isn't about what you put on your food. :-)
>
> In CS465 we talked today about passwords and the use of salts. Here is a
> definition for those of you who aren't familiar with the term:
>
> "In password protection, salt is a random string of data used to modify a
> password hash. Salt can be added to the hash to prevent a collision by
> uniquely identifying a user's password, even if another user in the
> system has selected the same password. Salt can also be added to make it
> more difficult for an attacker to break into a system by using password
> hash-matching strategies because adding salt to a password hash prevents
> an attacker from testing known dictionary words across the entire
> system."
>
> My question is, where does the term "salt" come from? No one in the
> class seemed to know, and after searching for a while on google I didn't
> see an answer there. Any ideas?
>
> -Evan
>
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Phillip Hellewell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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