<code lang="VB.NET">
  Public Shared Function GetMD5Hash(ByVal str As String) As String
    Try
      Dim MD5Hasher As New MD5CryptoServiceProvider
      Dim rawBytes As Byte() = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(str)
      Dim myHash As Byte() = MD5Hasher.ComputeHash(rawBytes)
      Dim myCapacity As Integer = Convert.ToInt32(((myHash.Length * 2) + (myHash.Length / 8)))
      Dim sb As System.Text.StringBuilder = New System.Text.StringBuilder(myCapacity)

      For i As Integer = 0 To myHash.Length - 1
        sb.Append(BitConverter.ToString(myHash, i, 1))
      Next

      Return sb.ToString().TrimEnd(New Char() {" "c}).ToLower
    Catch ex As Exception
      Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString)
      Return "Error occured."
    End Try
  End Function
</code>