VietMX Staff asked 3 years ago
The important part is what they do and how they do it:
- MD5 and SHA are hash functions (SHA is actually a family of hash functions) – they take a piece of data, compact it and create a suitably unique output that is very hard to emulate with a different piece of data. They don’t encrypt anything – you can’t take MD5 or SHA output and “unhash” it to get back to your starting point. The difference between the two lies in what algorithm they use to create the hash. Also note that MD5 is now broken as a way was discovered to easily generate collisions and should not be used nor trusted anymore.
- RSA is an assymetric encryption algorithm. You have two keys (private and public) and you can perform a function with one key (encrypt or decrypt) and reverse with the other key. Which key you use depends on whether you are trying to do a digital signature or an encryption.
