Short: building/testing checksums on files Uploader: markc archie au Type: util/crypt Architecture: m68k-amigaos MD5SUM - amiga port by Peter Simons What is MD5SUM? =============== MD5SUM is a small utility that allows you to build checksums over text- or binary files, using the "MD5 Message Digest Algorithm". These checksums can be stored in a file and can be validated later, using MD5SUM. For example, the checksums of the MD5SUM sources look like this: 107788ec46ef6ab9dbb190215f5b6f1a source/getopt.c ca1ada43f73cff4466adde1e88a8cf60 source/md5.c 4a6dafa2f6282430e65d4728a1303a53 source/md5sum.c So, what is this useful for? Say, you're releasing a software package including sources to the public and want to make shure, nobody modifies the program (for example: add backdoors) and redistributes the modified version. (Do not laugh, this already happened with BBS packages or common utilities. Once, even a virus was added to a utility!) You could include the digest-file with a checksum of every single file in release archive and everybody could easily check the validity of the files. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Simons | Usenet: simons@peti.GUN.de | PGP v2.x public key Europaring 20 | CBMNet: simons@peti.adsp.sub.org | available on request 53123 Bonn | Phone: +49 228 746061 | or via GET from almost Germany | CBM: ETG207 | any keyserver. Use it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------