Interview Questions

So if md5() generates the most secure hash, why would you ever use the less secure crc32() and sha1()?

PHP Interview Questions and Answers


(Continued from previous question...)

So if md5() generates the most secure hash, why would you ever use the less secure crc32() and sha1()?

Crypto usage in PHP is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s free. First off, depending on the data that you’re encrypting, you might have reasons to store a 32-bit value in the database instead of the 160-bit value to save on space. Second, the more secure the crypto is, the longer is the computation time to deliver the hash value. A high volume site might be significantly slowed down, if frequent md5() generation is required.

(Continued on next question...)

Other Interview Questions