Kovendo

In today’s digital world, protecting data is more important than ever. Over 90% of websites rely on hashing, not encryption, to store passwords securely. But what’s the difference between hashing, encryption, and encoding? Let’s break down these concepts in simple terms, and explore where and why they are used. What Is Hashing? Hashing is like taking some text—say, “hello”—feeding it into a “magic blender,” and getting out a short, fixed-length code like 2cf24d… —a hash . Every time “hello” goes in, you always get the same hash. But if you tweak “hello” to “Hello” (capital H), you get a totally different code. Hashing is one-way —you can’t “unblend” the hash to get “hello” back. Example: You type “apple” into a hash function → you get 1f3870be274f… Try again with “apple” → same result. Try “apple “ (with a space) → a completely different result, like 5a105e8b9d40… Why is this useful? It lets systems check your password without ever storing the actual password — t...