NIST Hash Workshop Liveblogging (5)
The afternoon started with three brand new hash functions: FORK-256, DHA-256, and VSH. VSH (Very Smooth Hash) was the interesting one; it’s based on factoring and the discrete logarithm problem, like public-key encryption, and not on bit-twiddling like symmetric encryption. I have no idea if it’s any good, but it’s cool to see something so different.
I think we need different. So many of our hash functions look pretty much the same: MD4, MD5, SHA-0, SHA-1, RIPE-MD, HAVAL, SHA-256, SHA-512. And everything is basically a block cipher in Davies-Meyer mode. I want some completely different designs. I want hash functions based on a stream ciphers. I want more functions based on number theory.
The final session was an open discussion about what to do next. There was much debate about how soon we need a new hash function, how long we should rely on SHA-1 or SHA-256, etc.
Hashing is hard. At the ultra-high-level hand-waving level, it takes a lot more clock cycles per message byte to hash than it does to encrypt. No one has any theory to account for this, but it seems like the lack of any secrets in a hash function makes it a harder problem. This may be an artifact of our lack of knowledge, but I think there’s a grain of fundamental truth buried here.
And hash functions are used everywhere. Hash functions are the workhorse of cryptography; they’re sprinkled all over security protocols. They’re used all the time, in all sorts of weird ways, for all sorts of weird purposes. We cryptographers think of them as good hygiene, kind of like condoms.
So we need a fast answer for immediate applications.
We also need “SHA2,” whatever that will look like. And a design competition is the best way to get a SHA2. (Niels Ferguson pointed out that the AES process was the best cryptographic invention of the past decade.)
Unfortunately, we’re in no position to have an AES-like competition to replace SHA right now. We simply don’t know enough about designing hash functions. What we need is research, random research all over the map. Designs beget analyses beget designs beget analyses…. Right now we need a bunch of mediocre hash function designs. We need a posse of hotshot graduate students breaking them and making names for themselves. We need new tricks and new tools. Hash functions are a hot area of research right now, but anything we can do to stoke that will pay off in the future.
NIST is thinking of hosting another hash workshop right after Crypto next year. That would be a good thing.
I need to get to work on a hash function based on Phelix.
Nicholas Weaver • November 1, 2005 4:07 PM
Any comments on Whirlpool (Rijmnen’s (dam’n can’t spell his name) hash function with its AES-like structure?)