The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm
RFC 1321
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(April 1992; Errata)
Updated by RFC 6151
|
|
---|---|---|---|
Author | Ronald Rivest | ||
Last updated | 2020-01-21 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized with errata bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 1321 (Informational) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | (None) | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group R. Rivest Request for Comments: 1321 MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and RSA Data Security, Inc. April 1992 The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Acknowlegements We would like to thank Don Coppersmith, Burt Kaliski, Ralph Merkle, David Chaum, and Noam Nisan for numerous helpful comments and suggestions. Table of Contents 1. Executive Summary 1 2. Terminology and Notation 2 3. MD5 Algorithm Description 3 4. Summary 6 5. Differences Between MD4 and MD5 6 References 7 APPENDIX A - Reference Implementation 7 Security Considerations 21 Author's Address 21 1. Executive Summary This document describes the MD5 message-digest algorithm. The algorithm takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit "fingerprint" or "message digest" of the input. It is conjectured that it is computationally infeasible to produce two messages having the same message digest, or to produce any message having a given prespecified target message digest. The MD5 algorithm is intended for digital signature applications, where a large file must be "compressed" in a secure manner before being encrypted with a private (secret) key under a public-key cryptosystem such as RSA. Rivest [Page 1] RFC 1321 MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm April 1992 The MD5 algorithm is designed to be quite fast on 32-bit machines. In addition, the MD5 algorithm does not require any large substitution tables; the algorithm can be coded quite compactly. The MD5 algorithm is an extension of the MD4 message-digest algorithm 1,2]. MD5 is slightly slower than MD4, but is more "conservative" in design. MD5 was designed because it was felt that MD4 was perhaps being adopted for use more quickly than justified by the existing critical review; because MD4 was designed to be exceptionally fast, it is "at the edge" in terms of risking successful cryptanalytic attack. MD5 backs off a bit, giving up a little in speed for a much greater likelihood of ultimate security. It incorporates some suggestions made by various reviewers, and contains additional optimizations. The MD5 algorithm is being placed in the public domain for review and possible adoption as a standard. For OSI-based applications, MD5's object identifier is md5 OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= iso(1) member-body(2) US(840) rsadsi(113549) digestAlgorithm(2) 5} In the X.509 type AlgorithmIdentifier [3], the parameters for MD5 should have type NULL. 2. Terminology and Notation In this document a "word" is a 32-bit quantity and a "byte" is an eight-bit quantity. A sequence of bits can be interpreted in a natural manner as a sequence of bytes, where each consecutive group of eight bits is interpreted as a byte with the high-order (most significant) bit of each byte listed first. Similarly, a sequence of bytes can be interpreted as a sequence of 32-bit words, where each consecutive group of four bytes is interpreted as a word with the low-order (least significant) byte given first. Let x_i denote "x sub i". If the subscript is an expression, we surround it in braces, as in x_{i+1}. Similarly, we use ^ for superscripts (exponentiation), so that x^i denotes x to the i-th power. Let the symbol "+" denote addition of words (i.e., modulo-2^32 addition). Let X <<< s denote the 32-bit value obtained by circularly shifting (rotating) X left by s bit positions. Let not(X) denote the bit-wise complement of X, and let X v Y denote the bit-wise OR of X and Y. Let X xor Y denote the bit-wise XOR of X and Y, and let XY denote the bit-wise AND of X and Y. Rivest [Page 2] RFC 1321 MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm April 1992 3. MD5 Algorithm Description We begin by supposing that we have a b-bit message as input, and that we wish to find its message digest. Here b is an arbitrary nonnegative integer; b may be zero, it need not be a multiple of eight, and it may be arbitrarily large. We imagine the bits of theShow full document text