Gail Riplinger wrote a lengthy note a few weeks back (Published by Kent Hovind’s website on February 11, 2016), accusing Dr. James White of many terrible things. In her article she made numerous bold claims that I would love to dig into, but frankly don’t have the time. She did, however, walk right into my wheelhouse in her attempt to discuss audio forensics.
I’m not trained in audio forensics, so I won’t pretend to be an authority on the matter. But given Gail’s short write-up, I can say with absolute confidence that she cannot possibly be an authority on the matter either. You see, in her attempt to sound authoritative, she made reference to something I do know a great deal about—hashing algorithms.
Since the MD5 algorithm is open source, programs to distort a voice and make it subtly more difficult to discern are widely available to non-professionals; dozens of apps can be purchased to do this. (as of 2016-02-24)
The above was Gail’s statement from the original post. I have, quite honestly, no idea what possessed her to pull MD5 into this discussion. It has nothing to do with generating clicks, pops, or any other audio artifacts as we’ll see momentarily.
I’ve been a software engineer for nearly two decades. In fact, as a young man (over a decade ago) I built Gail Riplinger’s website avpublications.com (as of 2016-02-24, it is still in use). The Lord must have a sense of humor.
Hashes exist in software security to store sensitive data (passwords, in particular) in a way that isn’t easily compromised in the event of a data-breach. Hashes are also used to confirm that files haven’t been subject to tampering. Think of hashes like trash compactors that take in loads of garbage, and output an indiscernible heap.
How about we look at an example?
Suppose you registered an account on my new website, and you provided the password “Genesis 1:1”. In my database, I could store a hash to represent this password. A hash, in this case, is a 128-bit value that represents your password. The above password would result the following hash: 15b4bd0bf02b2f1a591643c1af015c9d.
Here are a couple other hashes. Note that the size of the data being hashed has no impact over the size of the resulting hash. Each hash is 32 characters long:
| Input | MD5 Hash |
|---|---|
| jonathan | 78842815248300fa6ae79f7776a5080a |
| 1611 | 7a6a74cbe87bc60030a4bd041dd47b78 |
The great thing about hashes is that they are one-way, meaning I can generate the hash if I have your password, but I cannot generate your password if I have the hash. Each time you come to my site and provide a password to login, I hash the password you’re attempting to log-in with, and authenticate you only if the new hash matches the hash on file. (To my fellow engineers, I’m avoiding a discussion about salting, rainbow tables, etc).
Since hashes are determined by the input, they are used to confirm file integrity as well. A program author passes their program through the algorithm (like we passed a password earlier), and a 128-bit value is produced. That generated hash allows others to detect changes to the program (such as an embedded virus) upon download. If the hash you generate after downloading the program doesn’t match the hash published by the author, there’s a good chance you downloaded a corrupted file.
Back to Gail. Gail seems to think this has something to do with creating distortions, clicks, and pops in an audio file. She’s wrong. It doesn’t. An algorithm that adds distortion needs to output something that sounds almost like the input. MD5 hashing loses all of the original data.
What I am left wondering is why Gail would pretend to know something like this, at the risk of embarrassing herself. Does she think Hovind’s community of followers are too ignorant to catch her red-handed?
What this example demonstrates to me is that Gail is willing to lie in order to appear authoritative on a matter. I am left wondering how serious she could possibly take KJV Onlyism if she is willing to spread misinformation in its defense.
What saddens me most is that Kent Hovind continues to hold to the mast of Gail’s sinking reputation. Why he won’t let go, per the advise of so many around him, is beyond me. I can do nothing more than pray for his sight, and expose her blindness.
Countering KJV Onlyism 
Great response. I heard her comment about MD5 and had to chuckle myself. I am a Security Professional and when I heard that I told my wife that Gayle has no clue what she is talking about and is demonstrating her ignorance.