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[Full-disclosure] Chinese Professor Cracks Fifth Data Security Algorithm (SHA-1)


From: mouse at Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA (der Mouse)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:41:13 -0400 (EDT)

Cracking a hash would [...].  There are an infinite number of
messages that all hash to the same value.

Yes, but there's no guarantee that this is true of any particular hash
value, such as the one you're intersted in, only that there exists at
least one hash value that it's true of.

(At least, for hash functions in general.  A *good* hash function will
of course have this property for all hash values.  I don't know whether
SHA-1 is good in this respect, though I would expect it is.)

Okay, nitpicky-mathematician mode off.... :-)

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