I can't disagree with your sentiment... there comes a point where a hardware security module makes more sense than extraordinarily convoluted, tortured concealment of the salt and hashing mechanism.
It was perhaps unnecessarily blunt, but that is the root problem with most of these leaks: Someone who doesn't know what they're doing implementing a scheme that is only slightly more secure than storing the passwords in plaintext.
It turns out LivingSocial was actually using SHA-1 with a 40 byte salt [1].
> LivingSocial never stores passwords in plain text. LivingSocial passwords were hashed with SHA1 using a random 40 byte salt. What this means is that our system took the passwords entered by customers and used an algorithm to change them into a unique data string (essentially creating a unique data fingerprint) – that’s the “hash”. To add an additional layer of protection, the “salt” elongates the password and adds complexity. We have switched our hashing algorithm from SHA1 to bcrypt.
A 40 byte salt? "_additional_ layer of protection"? "elongates the password"? It's clear they thought they were implementing extra security (hey, let's use a 40 byte salt instead of 16, mega protection!) but failed miserably because they did not know what they were trying to combat.
