md5deep - Latest version 1.13

Quick Links

• Download md5deep
• The md5deep man page
• Changelog
• Quickstart Guide
• Sourceforge project page - Home to md5deep development and feature requests

Introduction

• Recursive operation - md5deep is able to recursive examine an entire directory tree. That is, compute the MD5 for every file in a directory and for every file in every subdirectory.
• Time estimation - md5deep can produce a time estimate when it's processing very large files.
• Comparison mode - md5deep can accept a list of known hashes and compare them to a set of input files. The program can display either those input files that match the list of known hashes or those that do not match. Hashes sets can be drawn from the National Software Reference Library, iLook Investigator, Hashkeeper, or md5sum, and other generic hash generating programs. Users are welcome to add functionality to read other formats too!
• Piecewise hashing - Hash input files in arbitrary blocks
• File type mode - md5deep can process only files of a certain type, such as regular files, block devices, etc.

About MD5

To quote the executive summary of RFC 1321, the official MD5 specification:

[MD5] 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 algorithm was originally developed by Professor Ron Rivest of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. More information on the algorithm can be found in RFC 1321 and in the RSA Cryptography FAQ.

About SHA-1

To quote the start of RFC 3174:

[SHA-1 is used] for computing a condensed representation of a message or a data file. When a message of any length < 2⁶⁴ bits is input, the SHA-1 produces a 160-bit output called a message digest.

Some weaknesses have been found in SHA-1 and the above statements may no longer be accurate. Please check the current status of SHA-1 for more information.

About SHA-256

To quote the start of FIPS 180-2:

This Standard specifies ... secure hash algorithms ... for computing a condensed representation of electronic data (message). When a message of any length < 2⁶⁴ bits is input to [SHA-256] , the result is an output called a message digest.

About Tiger

Tiger is a fast new hash function, designed to be very fast on modern computers, and in particular on the state-of-the-art 64-bit computers.

About Whirlpool

According to the official Whirlpool homepage,

Whirlpool is a hash function designed by Vincent Rijmen and Paulo S. L. M. Barreto that operates on messages less than 2²⁵⁶ bits in length, and produces a message digest of 512 bits. WHIRLPOOL has been selected for the NESSIE portfolio of cryptographic primitives. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has decided to include the final version of WHIRLPOOL in the revised ISO/IEC 10118-3:2003(E) standard.

Download

Stable Version

The latest stable version of md5deep is version 1.13 and was released on 6 Aug 2007. You can take a look at the complete changelog, but here are the changes in the latest version:

• Fixed error on Win32 in file estimate mode. Although it appeared to be solely cosmetic, the functions to produce the status message could potentially overwrite other memory and create inconsistencies to crash the program
• Changed piecewise hashing size to a 64 bit value. (Believe it or not, this was a problem for some folks!)
• Added -S mode to only display warnings for improperly formatted hashes
• Fixed cosmetic error regarding newlines in -n mode.
• Changed install procedure for man pages. Now using groff .so command instead of symbolic links
• Added support for HP/UX
• Removed make macg5 option. This doesn't work on newer versions of gcc.
• Updated MAX_STRING_LENGTH to 2048 to handle input files with exceedingly long lines
• Moved md5deep.h to main.h

Beta Version

There is no beta version of md5deep right now. If you have any problems or would like to see something added to md5deep, please send mail to the developer at md5deep (at) jessekornblum (dot) com or visit the Sourceforge project page .

Older Versions

Older versions of md5deep are available for historical purposes. Unless you have a truly compelling reason, you shouldn't use these.

About the developer

md5deep was written and is now maintained by Jesse Kornblum. At the time it was originally written, Mr. Kornblum was a Special Agent with the United State Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI). As such, the program is considered to be a work of the United States Government. Under 17 USC 105, works of the United States Government are not eligible for copyright protection.

Please send all correspondence to md5deep (at) jessekornblum (dot) com.

Acknowledgements