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by: periwinklePosted on 2003-08-20 at 11:04:27ID: 9190073
Basic authentication uses passwords which are passed over the internet as uuencoded information. While this means that the information doesn't pass over the internet as plain text, someone watching the packet traffic could decode it if they saw the right packet.
u/docs/tut orials/use r.html features/u serauth
Digest authentication is a newer standard based on MD5 authentication, and instead of passing the password over the internet, it generates a hash of information and creates a 'digest' that is passed over the network. This 'digest' is used with the server to test against the saved digest.
While digest security is more secure across the network, it requires that the digest is decodable, unlike the crypt methodology used for basic authentication (which is 'one way' encryption - you can't decode it). Therefore, the server security becomes even more important. From what I understand, it isn't necessarily trivial to set up MD5 encryption on the server.
I think that the browser must support MD5 encryption as well - while almost all (if not all) browsers support basic crypt() based authentication, I don't believe that all support MD5 encryption.
Some more information on this:
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.ed
http://www.apacheweek.com/