[dsacco]

No, "work factor" is a term that (roughly) describes how computationally expensive brute-forcing the digest will be. They're associated terms, but it would be more accurate to think of the work factor as the final result of the key stretching process.

[bogomipz]

Ah I see, it's concerned with low entropy.

I believe this paper might be the origin of the term(correct me if I'm wrong.)

I thought it was a good read if anyone else is interested:

https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-low-entro...