[Ezra]

In this case, the password field doesn't hold just a password, or a rot13 of a password, or even a digest of a password.

user_password is a concatenated md5 hash of user_id, a hyphen (-), and md5 hash of current password. ie. MD5(CONCAT(user_id, "-", MD5("PASSWORD")))

The reason for this is security, obviously.

The tinyblob then, is used for convenience/efficiency; it's a good way to store a hash. They might also do some tricks on the data (ie. convert to base 64 before it's stored, or something like that), but that's the general idea.

[Angostura]

Head-slap "of course"

Thanks for taking the time Ezra.