[otrs] Please help with md5

Hi, I'd like to be able to write and read the same md5 passwords writen by other application, in php. I took a look to some files like Kernel/System/CustomerAuth/DB.pm and others and from reading the pw created by OTRS I realized that it was a mix of md5 of different information of the user and encrypted. Is this a security measure? Maybe it's easier to change our current back-end to imitate the OTRS script. I'm not programmer but working with somebody who develops mostly in PHP. Thanks for any help. -- Bruno