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AngryParsley comments on Easy Predictor Tests - Less Wrong
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MD5 isn't very useful as a cryptographic hash these days. It's not hard to find collisions for a given hash or create two plaintexts with the same hash. In fact, this has been used to create a rogue certificate authority. SHA-1 is looking pretty weak, but finding or constructing collisions with it is still infeasible.
To quote a certain BBC television presenter: oh, cock. Is there a better cryptographic hash than those two commonly available?
Edit: Let me clarify - of course they're out there, but I was hoping to pick something which is very easy to find, install, and use among those interested. (Anything with a reputable website I could link to for Windows & UNIX downloads would be fine, I'm sure.)
Yup. There's SHA-2 and some other algorithms. Right now the NIST is holding a contest for SHA-3. It's narrowed down to 14 candidates. The winner will be announced in 2012.
ETA: Really though, unless you're some super-spy, SHA-1 should be good enough until stronger hashes become common.
I don't even have SHA-2 on my computer - SHA-1 hash added to original comment.
shasum should support all the algorithms:
Take a look at the shasum man pages for more parameters.
Unfortunately, I don't have shasum on my MacBook - I had to use openssl.
Are you using an earlier version of OS X? I'm on 10.6 and it looks like shasum comes with 10.6.
Yes - 10.5.8. With drop damage, so it's not practical or economical to invest in an upgrade. (Am considering the purchase of a netbook as a replacement sometime in the unspecified probably-more-than-a-year-from-now future.)