Re: File Integrity Check

[Bill_Royds () pch gc ca]

In asking the question about relative security of CRC and sum, I received a
private reply from Brian Denehy of Securegate in Australia. He mentioned a
cryptographic checksum algorithm called Haval. Searching for this I found it at
Monash University web site. This algorithm seems very useful for this purpose
since it allows one to tailor the algorithm between security and speed. It
allows either 3, 4 or 5 rounds of  hashing and 64, 128 or 256 bits of resulting
hashcode.
I am testing it to see if it can run fast enough to not disrupt the network too
long in a backup situation. At lower size hashcodes, it is about 2x faster than
MD5. THis means it is in the same range as CRC and becomes a more useful hash
for simple backup verification.

The source is at
 http://www.pscit.monash.edu.au/~yuliang/src/
with writeups and  papers explaining the algorithm at

http://www.pscit.monash.edu.au/~yuliang/pubs/