quote:
I thought that is what KiXCrypt was about? That is encrypting the script.
Two different things, although they are often closely related.

The MD5 checksum is simply used to check with a near degree of certainty that a file (or other arbitrary data) is unchanged.

In an administration context this is useful for checking if
  • A file is out of date (version control)
  • A file has been changed (requires backing up)
  • If a downloaded/emailed file is the same as the original
In a security context it is useful for checking if a file or email has been tampered with. As a real world example, you can fingerprint all the files on a PC and spot any unexpected changes.
You will often see MD5 sums associated with things like PGP messages and files, but the actual algorithm used is normally RSA.