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http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/

AFAIK crypt(3) should not be using "plain" md5, it uses both a salt and variations of md5, plus the hash function is run many times so that bruteforce attacks are mitigated (it takes much more time to compute the hashes)

googling..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypt_(Unix)#MD5-based_scheme

I think teraflop had in mind salting.

A salt only protects against pre-computed dictionary attacks (rainbow tables). It does not offer any additional protection in this scenario.

I would recommend both salting and key strengthening.

It's not best practice (use bcrypt/PBKDF2/scrypt), but there are no known or suspected attacks on that construction and the original article does not seem likely to help in finding one.