Technically speaking, Open Directory is an LDAP database that can be used to store information about users, contacts, computers, groups (of all of the above) and other devices. The reason we do not call Open Directory LDAP is that it also has other components. These include Kerberos for single sign-on, SASL for integration with other services and password server, to keep the passwords you use secure.
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Password Encryption
I originally posted this at http://www.318.com/TechJournal Logging onto most network resources requires the use of a password. Before passwords are sent over networks they are encrypted. Many different variables and algorithms are used to encrypt passwords. The most common method of encrypting passwords before they are sent over a network uses the seconds and minutes fields of file modification time stamps to build variables. The system doesn’t use the time stamp as a variable directly, but uses them to generate hashes. A hash is a number generated from a string of text. The hash is smaller than the text itself and is generated by a formula in such a way…