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August 16, 2004
Rumors of SHA-1 Vulnerability
Posted by Ernest Miller
Ed Felten breaks what may be very important news on Freedom to Tinker (SHA-1 Break Rumored).
SHA-1 is a member of the SHA family of cryptographic hash functions. Basically, a hash takes a file and then creates a "unique" and much shorter identifier for that file. Change even 1 bit of a file and the hash will be completely different. The hash is "unique" in the sense that is extremely improbable that two unrelated files will have the same hash. There are many uses for such a technique and the SHA family (particularly SHA-1) is commonly used in all sorts of programs and protocols:
If SHA-1 is completely broken, the result would be significant confusion, reengineering of many systems, and incompatibility between new (patched) systems and old.
To put it mildly.
If true, this would also be evidence that even seemingly foolproof and well-tested algorithms can become vulnerable.
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Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
