Why is a rainbow table called a rainbow table

[Alice J.]

Googling, I find plenty of references to rainbow tables,
but none seem to explain WHY it's called a rainbow table.

Where's the rainbow?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table
https://www.ethicalhacker.net/columns/gates/tutorial-rainbow-tables-and-rainbowcrack
https://quizlet.com/98793237/chapter-2-system-forensics-investigation-and-response-flash-cards/

[Jeff Liebermann]

I'm not sure this is correct, but it's all I could find:
<https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090625112939AAQBIJg>

--
Jeff Liebermann je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

[Alice J.]

Jeff Liebermann wrote in message
i8hgablmsjqedh09s...@4ax.com:

> I'm not sure this is correct, but it's all I could find:
> <https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090625112939AAQBIJg>

That said this:
"They're called rainbow tables because each column has a
different reduction function and sortof looks like a rainbow."

I found, after lots of bad hits, a few similar hints here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5051608/rainbow-table
"they call it Rainbow tables because they use a different
reduction function on each column on the table"

And another hint here:
http://kestas.kuliukas.com/RainbowTables/
"Rainbow tables differ in that they don't use multiple tables
with different reduction functions, they only use one table.
However in Rainbow Tables a different reduction function is
used for each column."

Not concrete but I guess that's as good as it gets.

[Markus Grob]

Alice J. wrote:

> And another hint here:
> http://kestas.kuliukas.com/RainbowTables/
> "Rainbow tables differ in that they don't use multiple tables
> with different reduction functions, they only use one table.
> However in Rainbow Tables a different reduction function is
> used for each column."

Could be, that they mean, that the difference from one row to the next
is only a little bit different like a rainbow. ;-)

Sincerely, Markus

[Alice J.]

Markus Grob wrote in message n8ajc7$brt$2...@dont-email.me:

> Could be, that they mean, that the difference from one row to the next
> is only a little bit different like a rainbow. ;-)

: These files are called rainbow tables because they
: contain every letter combination "under the rainbow".

The implication seems to be that Martin Hellman
coined the term in a paper published in 1980.

[Richard Kettlewell]

"Alice J." <alice.jone...@ptd.net> writes:
> The implication seems to be that Martin Hellman coined the term in a
> paper published in 1980.

The term is from a paper by Philippe Oechslin in 2003.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Alice J.]

Alice J. wrote in message n8akm0$6g5$4...@news.albasani.net:

> : These files are called rainbow tables because they
> : contain every letter combination "under the rainbow".
>
> The implication seems to be that Martin Hellman
> coined the term in a paper published in 1980.

I forgot to put the cite where this supposedly came from
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lWtuAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=why+are+they+called+rainbow+tables&source=bl&ots=elqt2z_ByD&sig=pmoJ4oRmLHlKjmtEQTifD2ESZ6U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs49Ly9sjKAhWGaxQKHZ2WD_IQ6AEIYDAL#v=onepage&q=why%20are%20they%20called%20rainbow%20tables&f=false

[Markus Grob]

OK. This meaning seems to be possible. Beacuse of this, I use salted
passwords.

Sincerely, Markus

[Richard Kettlewell]

"Alice J." <alice.jone...@ptd.net> writes:
>> The implication seems to be that Martin Hellman
>> coined the term in a paper published in 1980.
>
> I forgot to put the cite where this supposedly came from
> https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lWtuAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=why+are+they+called+rainbow+tables&source=bl&ots=elqt2z_ByD&sig=pmoJ4oRmLHlKjmtEQTifD2ESZ6U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs49Ly9sjKAhWGaxQKHZ2WD_IQ6AEIYDAL#v=onepage&q=why%20are%20they%20called%20rainbow%20tables&f=false

“No preview available for this page”. But you don’t need to look at
third-party sources, the relevant papers are linked from the Wikipedia
page.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Alice J.]

Richard Kettlewell wrote in message 877fiv1...@mantic.terraraq.uk:

> “No preview available for this page”. But you don’t need to look at
> third-party sources, the relevant papers are linked from the Wikipedia
> page.

Some said the term was coined in "Making a Faster Cryptanalytic Time-Memory
Trade-Off" by Philippe Oechslin (2003) in which he describes an
improvement to Hellman's method. He doesn't explain the term.

[Alice J.]

Richard Kettlewell wrote in message 87d1sn1...@mantic.terraraq.uk:

> The term is from a paper by Philippe Oechslin in 2003.

Others explain this...
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5051608/rainbow-table

(beginning with: Because it contains the entire "spectrum"
of possibilities.)

[Richard Kettlewell]

They don’t, though. That person is just guessing, wrongly.

The guess further down by osgx that that the different reduction
functions are notionally different colors is much more plausible.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

[Jeff Liebermann]

Maybe, but usage of the term in English language printed books started
in about 2002:

<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rainbow+table&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1980&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3>