Final answer:
The concept in question is a cryptanalytic time-memory trade-off known as Rainbow Tables, described by Martin Hellman in 1980, which are used in cryptanalysis to speed up the reverse lookup of cryptographic hashes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The concept described in the question is a cryptanalytic time-memory trade-off, which is used to reduce the time required for cryptanalysis by utilizing precomputed data stored in memory. The correct term for this concept is Rainbow Tables. Rainbow Tables are a data structure that makes it faster to perform a reverse lookup for a cryptographic hash function's output, essentially finding the plaintext from the hash. These tables were indeed described by Martin Hellman in 1980 and are not an encryption method themselves, but a tool to crack cryptographic systems efficiently, like those used for password verification.