[[email protected]: Re: SHA-0]

No it does not...we think...

SHA-0 is the nick-name for the first draft of SHA put forward by NIST/NSA of the US Gov't. Cryptographers got up in arms about how it had a "lazy bit" (a bit that does not effect the output of the hash) and how it did not have enough rounds.

So, they named the "first" SHA SHA-0 because it wasn't good enough. And SHA-1 the "first released" SHA. SHA-1 was designed to be stronger than SHA-0 in at least one of the ways SHA-0 was recently exploited.

Still, this is a very interesting development in the field of hash function cryptanalysis. Biham should be co-presenting a paper explain how they did it soon. They give allusion to a possible attack on SHA-1...but I hear it's still theoretical.

SHA-256 is looking better. Though SHA-1 is still strong enough, it may not last to its 2012 "expiry date" for vulnerabilities to collision attacks set by Lenstra/Verheul in (1).

Cheers,

JLC

(1) Selecting Cryptographic Key Sizes</a> by Arjen K. Lenstra, Eric R. Verheul

    <http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/conferences/1999/ecc99/lenstra.doc>