NIST wants comments on proposed 'hash' competition

As a first step in this process, NIST is looking for comments on its recently published draft minimum acceptability requirements, submission requirements and evaluation criteria for candidate algorithms.

Hashing algorithms are mathematical procedures that take data, usually a message, and chop and combine it down into a much shorter number that is a “fingerprint” of the original data. Good hash algorithms have two features—two different inputs are overwhelmingly likely to generate two different fingerprints, and given a specific fingerprint, there is no practical way of calculating a set of input data that will have the same fingerprint.

Hash algorithms are used widely by the federal government and others in various applications, such as digital signatures and message authentication. FIPS 180-2 specifies five cryptographic hash algorithms—SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512. Because serious attacks have been reported in recent years against cryptographic hash algorithms, including SHA-1, NIST is preparing the groundwork for a more secure hash standard.

Media Contact

Jan Kosko EurekAlert!

More Information:

http://www.nist.gov

All latest news from the category: Information Technology

Here you can find a summary of innovations in the fields of information and data processing and up-to-date developments on IT equipment and hardware.

This area covers topics such as IT services, IT architectures, IT management and telecommunications.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

New insights into the mechanisms of chromosome segregation errors

Research on centromere structure… Researchers from the Kops group in collaboration with researchers from the University of Edinburgh, made a surprising new discovery in the structure of the centromere, a structure…

“Topological hall effect” in two-dimensional quantum magnets

In a recent study published in Nature Physics, researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with researchers of University of Science and Technology of China, have introduced the…

Coating Technologies of the Future

LZH and Cutting Edge Coatings at Optatec… At Optatec 2024, the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) and Cutting Edge Coatings GmbH (CEC) present new opportunities in coating technologies for the…

Partners & Sponsors