&#62; In general, hashed password storage is a tough game to win in an absolute sense. So, we are effectively left with slowing the attacker down to the point that it isn't worth their while.<p>And? Public key cryptography is impossible in an absolute sense, because there are algorithms that compute the private key given the public key. In fact, we have a good definition of "perfect secrecy", but the only cryptosystems that meet that definition <i>must</i> have keys that are as long as the message, which is impractical. Slowing the adversary down is how practical cryptography works.