Bitcoin Forum

I've been reading this thread for a while now http://"https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1976.6800" and have read several times that the "passwords where salt and peppered" or even "passwords where salt and peppered and possibly ketchuped"  What? What the heck does that mean?

It's a little cryptographic joke. Usually, passwords are stored as a hash, which converts a password of any length to a fixed-length series of bytes. The same password results in the same hash always. This allows a password to be checked by hashing it and comparing it to a stored hash. The password cannot be reasonably deduced from the hash. (Note: Bitcoin mining is a partial reversal of a special hash that will not be discussed in this post). However, salt helps keep the password more secure. There is a lookup table called a rainbow table that allows a hash to be cracked with ease for limited length passwords. By adding a salt(by sticking it on the end of the password at the Slush server before hashing), the hashes are now of a password and a salt. While this does not appreciably slow down bruteforce, rainbow tables are not prepared to deal with an arbitrary salt. Therefore salting secures your password.

Now the pepper is just a joke as salt often is used with pepper. Ketchup is another condiment.

Thanks for the explanation, even though I'm not the OP. Interesting to know.

At my company, we call "pepper" the act of creating an account with a known password before stealing the hashed passwords. We turned a joke into a descriptor.

haha so thats what it means.  Thanks rarkenin

Kind sucks that I can only post here, for now, but here it goes.

If someone not a newbie can read this, please PM slush saying he has not updated the DNS for api-stratum.bitcoin.cz and my miners hadn't switched from the compromised machine on OVH.

Best regards