Keccak is SHA-3
NIST has just announced that Keccak has been selected as SHA-3.
It’s a fine choice. I’m glad that SHA-3 is nothing like the SHA-2 family; something completely different is good.
Congratulations to the Keccak team. Congratulations—and thank you—to NIST for running a very professional, interesting, and enjoyable competition. The process has increased our understanding about the cryptanalysis of hash functions by a lot.
I know I just said that NIST should choose “no award,” mostly because too many options makes for a bad standard. I never thought they would listen to me, and—indeed—only made that suggestion after I knew it was too late to stop the choice. Keccak is a fine hash function; I have absolutely no reservations about its security. (Or the security of any of the four SHA-2 function, for that matter.) I have to think more before I make specific recommendations for specific applications.
Again: great job, NIST. Let’s do a really fast stream cipher next.
Hanno • October 2, 2012 5:24 PM
About the “what to do next”: Wouldn’t it be time for another public key algorithm? Just read these days about further advances in quantum computing and I think it may be time to switch to a shor-attack-safe algorithm.