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I noticed the download pages for both Alex's Motherboard Monitor and Trojan Defense Suite contain something called MD5 checksum .. followed by long hashes, such as: 799ac45a1c7e570c53dd27839b8379de. Did some research and discovered that that MD5 is an algorithm (mathematical formula) developed by a Professor at MIT, that serves as a digital security mechanism of sorts, which is "a way to verify data integrity." I also found two free program you can download. One is MD5 hash, the other WinMD5. I tried both, and they both work fine. With the first, you 'open' the file you wish to check by navigating to it. With the second, you drag-n-drop the file into/onto the WinMD5 program. I was actually surprised to see such a large hash reproduced so accurately. Anyway, with an MD5 hash and one of these free programs, you can be certain no one has tampered with the program file(s) you are downloading, and that you got the whole enchilada. I dig all that crypto-techno-über-geek stuff. Update: We've had some clarification on how MD5 ensures secure files. From Marc Hollins: The original publisher of the file calculates the MD5 hash from the file and posts the hash on his web site. You download the file and calculate another MD5 hash from the downloaded file. You compare the original hash with the one you generate. If they match, you know your file has not been tampered with. Hope that helps. |
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