I always wondered something: does using a secret key as salt and keeping the last (few) block(s) of a block cipher as output produce a reasonable hashing algorithm? maybe with three salts, one for the key, one as a prefix to the password and one as a suffix?
What the GP describes is absolutely correct. It may not be all that common but it is a known pattern. That you haven't heard of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
> An alternative approach is to hash the passwords as usual and then encrypt the hashes with a symmetrical encryption key before storing them in the database, with the key acting as the pepper.
