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NIST Opens Competition for a New Hash Algorithm

Posted by Zonk on Fri Nov 09, 2007 02:00 PM
from the not-that-long-to-wait dept.
Encryption Security Math Technology
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology has opened a public competition for the development of a new cryptographic hash algorithm, which will be called Secure Hash Algorithm-3 (SHA-3), and will augment the current algorithms specified in the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 180-2. This is in response to serious attacks reported in recent years against cryptographic hash algorithms, including SHA-1, and because SHA-1 and the SHA-2 family share a similar design. Submissions are being accepted through October 2008, and the competition timeline indicates that a winner will be announced in 2012."
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Submission: NIST Opens Competition for a New Hash Algorithm by InvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837)
[+] New NSA-Approved Encryption Standard May Contain Backdoor 322 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "Bruce Schneier has a story on Wired about the new official standard for random-number generators the NIST released this year that will likely be followed by software and hardware developers around the world. There are four different approved techniques (pdf), called DRBGs, or 'Deterministic Random Bit Generators' based on existing cryptographic primitives. One is based on hash functions, one on HMAC, one on block ciphers and one on elliptic curves. The generator based on elliptic curves called Dual_EC_DRBG has been championed by the NSA and contains a weakness that can only be described as a backdoor. In a presentation at the CRYPTO 2007 conference (pdf) in August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that there are constants in the standard used to define the algorithm's elliptic curve that have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG."
[+] NIST Announces Round 1 Candidates For SHA-3 Competition 125 comments
jd writes "NIST has announced the round 1 candidates for the Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Challenge. Of the 64 who submitted entries, 51 were accepted. Of those, in mere days, one has been definitely broken, and three others are believed to have been. At this rate, it won't take the couple of years NIST was reckoning to whittle down the field to just one or two. (In comparison, the European Union version, NESSIE, received just one cryptographic hash function for its contest. One has to wonder if NIST and the crypto experts are so concerned about being overwhelmed with work for this current contest, why they all but ignored the European effort. A self-inflicted wound might hurt, but it's still self-inflicted.) Popular wisdom has it that no product will have any support for any of these algorithms for years — if ever. Of course, popular wisdom is ignoring all Open Source projects that support cryptography (including the Linux kernel) which could add support for any of these tomorrow. Does it really matter if the algorithm is found to be flawed later on, if most of these packages support algorithms known to be flawed today? Wouldn't it just be geekier to have passwords in Blue Midnight Wish or SANDstorm rather than boring old MD5, even if it makes no practical difference whatsoever?"
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  • hash algorithm hash recipe (Score:4, Funny)

    by Briden (1003105) on Friday November 09 2007, @02:03PM (#21298871)
    i prefer the bubble bag method for making hash
  • Why does the government promote creating new encryption methods when encrypting data so clearly means you have something to hide and are therefore guilty? I mean COME ON!

    • Encryption != Hashing (Score:4, Informative)

      by rock217 (802738) <slashdot AT rockshouse DOT com> on Friday November 09 2007, @02:16PM (#21299135) Homepage Journal
      Encryption implies that you can reconstruct the original string from the encoded. Methods like md5, sha1, etc are one way algorithms that cannot be reversed* in a realistic amount of time.



      * - Rainbow tables

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by TechyImmigrant (175943) *
        When hashing a data set larger than the resulting digest, it cannot be reversed at all. However you can find collisions which is handy if you want to subvert the PKI hierarchy that protects web transactions.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Comatose51 (687974)
        Rainbow tables won't help you get the old message back since pretty much by definition or pigeonhole theorem there is more than one plaintext that can generate the same hash. Breaking a hash algorithm usually involves finding a plaintext that generates the specific hash, thus fooling the victim into thinking that plaintext was the original one.

        Or imagine this: you have a simple hash function that takes all the letters in a message, turns them into number based on their place in the alphabet, and adds them

              • Re:No, you're right. (Score:4, Informative)

                by smallfries (601545) on Friday November 09 2007, @04:25PM (#21301013) Homepage
                Maybe you should chase the etymology one level deeper. If the original data cannot be recovered then it is not "hidden" but "destroyed". You may not believe that the term encryption means a two-way process with an available decryption function - but that is the definition that the crypto community uses, and so it's good enough for me.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by flosofl (626809)

            One very simple attack was changing the grades in a school system. The school encrypted the grades, so they thought they were safe from change. The failed students hacked into the system, and just changed their data to the same data held against students they knew had done well. Anyway, that's just one way that encryption doesn't protect you against malicious modification. It gets a lot sneakier the more you look into it.

            What was the school using, ROT13? It sounds like they were using a substitution cipher

  • Once I develope the winning uber hash function, what do I get? I can't find in the timeline where it mentions a large cash prize with strippers jumping out of cake. Some balloons too.

    Where is the link in the story to this part? Anyone?

  • Oblig. xkcd link (Score:5, Funny)

    by hellergood (968199) on Friday November 09 2007, @02:20PM (#21299187)
    http://xkcd.com/257/ [xkcd.com]
  • I put a SHA-1 based KDF in 802.16 because NIST SP800-56 told me to.

    Argh.

  • With hash values getting longer and longer, wouldn't it be more economic to just use Identity as the hashing function?

    Here's your grain of salt...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by marcello_dl (667940)
      No.
      • Hashes are used directly in essentially all forms of signatures and integrity verifications, as you hash the data being represented and then sign or protect the hash value. HMAC's are (or should be) used with strong keys for protecting the integrity of communications. As such, hashes should be fast and resistant to capable assault with massive computational resources. Given the birthday effect, collisions will occur with a when a message pool is ~ sqrt(hash size).

        The attacks against SHA-1 have reduced the

    • A 1024 byte hash is not large compared to the gigabyte file it signs.
      • >Personally I think anything over 256 is overkill. But that's just me...

        It's moot in certs. It's going to be padded out to 2048 bits anyway.
      • Take the first half of the 256-bit hash and you have a stronger 128-bit hash than a 128-bit hash using the same algorithm. The only point of a true 128-bit hash would be performance, but if you really care about crypto performance you do everything in hardware, and you might as well buy the 256-bit chip these days.

        • Take the first half of the 256-bit hash and you have a stronger 128-bit hash than a 128-bit hash using the same algorithm.
          I hope you don't actually believe that.
  • part of the reason for the long delay is to allow the CIA and NSA to evaluate all contenders for suitability of being crackable/backdoorable by them.
    • The NSA has approved AES for encrypting secret data (128+ bits) and top secret data (192+ bits). Unless they are playing a very deep denial and deception game, it stands to reason that they can't find a way through it either.

  • So, what requirements should a submission fulfill? I can't find them!

    • what fragment of that sentance? There's a subject, main verb, helper verbs and objects!

      Maybe you didn't mean fragment, but I don't know what a phragment is...
      • And I don't know what a sentance is either.

        If you're going to be a grammar Nazi, at least spell-check your post :)
    • This is
          in response to serious attacks reported in recent years against cryptographic hash algorithms, including SHA-1
      and
          because SHA-1 and the SHA-2 family share a similar design.

      You won't catch me defending this abomination of a sentence, but that's how I'd parse such a thing.

    • Re:What would happen if... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SigILL (6475) on Friday November 09 2007, @02:19PM (#21299161) Homepage

      What would happen if you wrote a program to randomly create algorithms? Most of them would be rubbish, but occasionally you'd hit gold.

      Yes, and you'd spend most of your time trying to prove those algorithms are any good. That's the hard part anyhow, coming up with new algorithms isn't.
      • Automate the testing (of the algorithms).
      • That's why you'll see even the authors of cryptosystems that lost to AES recommending AES. In some cases, the losers are theoretically more secure. However what they are not is more tested. AES is probably the most tested cryptosystem next to DES. As such, people are pretty sure there aren't any lurking holes.
    • That's the idea behind genetic algorithms [wikipedia.org]. Although the approach is a bit "smarter." Actually, I had the idea of making a hashing algorithm using a GA for the (second) time yesterday.
    • Democratic version: Note, I'm l[L]ibertarian, and find the humor in parent post.

      1. Declare war on Social Ill Y with a bogus slogan "_______ Crisis"
      2. Announce increase in taxes and/or entitlement spending
      3. Repeat 2 as often as necessary for the domestic brain dead.
      4. Use to increase political power locally and abroad by showing how "enlightened" you are.
      5. Profit!
      6. We all lose.

      Cheers,
      Hillary Roddam C. [hillaryclinton.com]
      • As you've admitted to being a libertarian, I suppose I should make one for you, too:

        1. Declare war on Big Government with bogus slogan "Let the free market fix __________"
        2. Announce plans to decrease funding to social programs
        3. Figure out that you have no one in any elected office in any country anywhere who can carry out 2.
        4. Announce that someone who has never professed to be a libertarian but holds a few libertarian ideals, is in fact a libertarian. Do the same for historical figures, especially anarchists.
        5. Make up bogus arguments about the magical free market that will never be put to any sort of test, due to 3., above.
        6. Parrot back tired arguments that were disproved hundreds of years ago, back in the days of lassez-faire. Conveniently forget about child labor, horrid working conditions, rampant pollution, institutionalized racism, debt slavery, and any other facts that show unregulated free market capitalism destroys lives.
        7. Cherry pick examples of deregulation and privatization, ignoring any cases that prove libertarian methods wrong.
        8. Try to convince other libertarians to all move to the same state so you can remedy point 2.
        9. Realize that convincing self-centered libertarians to do anything is like trying to herd cats.
        10. The rest of us grow bored with your childish, self involved, "Nyah nyah, you're not the boss of me!" political stance and ignore you, as libertarians have never managed to do anything more than talk.

        Wait, that's not funny, it's just sad.
        • First off, Touche. I love a good ribbing ... :-D

          1) Never been tried.
          2) What's wrong with this?
          3) Sad, isn't it?
          4) Huh?
          5) Again haven't been tried in a while
          6) I actually believe GVMT Roll in some of these things
          7) No Cherry Picking here
          8) Whatever
          9) Whatever
          10) Too many people being (D) or (R) because of Fear and Fear.

          Lets just deal with #1

          Free Markets are easy to control. Corporate Charters are given by the GVMT, why aren't they revoked more often? Why aren't assets seized? Why aren't boards of directors a

    • Re:I know I'm paranoid, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kebes (861706) on Friday November 09 2007, @02:25PM (#21299261) Journal

      I know I'm being paranoid, but did anybody else think that this is a way for the gummint to get a look at the various methods people are using to secure their data?
      I think you are being a bit paranoid! NIST is proposing an open competition to develop a new open standard for hashing. Anyone who wants to participate can do so. Anyone who wants to retain their "secret hashing method" can continue to keep it secret. It's not like the government is demanding anything. This is just a research agency promoting open research.

      Not to mention that I sincerely doubt that anyone is currently using some super-secret ultra-elite hashing algorithm that no one else knows about. This field of mathematics and security is quite mature and very much open to scrutiny currently. The current solutions are fully documented. I think the point here is that further progress isn't going to be made by lone researchers hiding their results: the only way forward is via more open collaboration.

      What better way to get the methods than to have a 'competition', something that will stroke the egos of crackers?
      If a cracker wants to sell his secrets at the cost of an ego-stroke, that's his choice. Nothing nefarious here. Again, NIST is not going to take these results and use them for evil ends (or even for commercial gain): they are hoping to create an open, public standard that everyone will benefit from (and which international experts in mathematics, cryptography, and computer security will analyze in detail). That's what NIST does.

      Sorry, but I think your paranoia is unfounded in this case!

      (Disclosure: I work with NIST, but have nothing to do with this project. Note that my opinions are my own and should not be construed as official statements from NIST.)

      • Very similar to the AES competition (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Friday November 09 2007, @02:57PM (#21299747)
        Also done by NIST. I suppose you could be all paranoid and claim that AES was chosen so the that US government could snoop on you since, after all, the NSA signed off on it as being secure and they'd never tell the truth, right? Well, except for the fact that it was designed by a couple of Belgians and has also been signed off on by essentially every other respected crypto expert and organization there is.

        So that leaves you with two possible situations:

        1) That the NSA is so amazingly far ahead of everyone else in crypto that they were able to find something in AES that no one else has in over a decade. Also they are so confident in their knowledge that they believe nobody else will find it since if they did the results would be a big problem (AES is approved for classified data, and is used by US financial institutions).

        or

        2) AES is really secure, and the NSA is telling the truth.

        Now which is more likely? Also, supposing you believe option #1 then why trust any crypto? If the NSA really is so good that they can outdo the entire rest of the crypto community, well then they can probably break pretty much any of the cryptosystems out there. You can't trust any of them since the only people who would really know if they were insecure won't say.

        Seems extremely unlikely.

        Well, same deal with this hash competition. If you believe that the government will be able to pick one that is in fact something they can break, but that nobody else in the world will know about this then it doesn't matter, because their understanding is so far advanced that all hashes would have to be suspect.

        Given the extremely public, international, nature of things like this there really isn't any room for mistrust. I again point to the results of the AES competition. You want to talk about a cypher that has stood up to some extreme scrutiny, there you go.

        • Re:Very similar to the AES competition (Score:5, Informative)

          by lgw (121541) on Friday November 09 2007, @03:07PM (#21299877) Journal

          1) That the NSA is so amazingly far ahead of everyone else in crypto that they were able to find something in AES that no one else has in over a decade.
          When the DES standard was created, the NSA was so amazing far ahead of everyone else that they were able to find somehting in DES that no one else found for over a decade. The NSA provided very specific technical advice (without explanation) that was followed in the creation of DES. Many years later, the rest of the world caught up and discovered that the NSA had corrected a very subtle weakness in DES.

          The NSA has an actual track record here, and their motives have proven good so far. However, they claim that (due to lack of funding and too much competition from financial firms for math PhDs) they aren't so far ahead any more.

          • Re:Very similar to the AES competition (Score:4, Insightful)

            by evilviper (135110) on Friday November 09 2007, @06:03PM (#21302333) Journal

            However, they claim that (due to lack of funding and too much competition from financial firms for math PhDs) they aren't so far ahead any more.

            You've got it wrong. They were decades ahead because nobody outside of the NSA was doing cryptography AT ALL. There was no real effort at all from the private sector.

            DES was really the ONE cryptographic algorithm that existed, anywhere, and even that could only be found internal to IBM, which was by far the biggest digital equipment company anywhere at the time.

            It isn't "too much competition" now, it's simply that, for the first time, they've got any competition at all.

        • Re:Very similar to the AES competition (Score:4, Informative)

          by Llywelyn (531070) on Friday November 09 2007, @03:13PM (#21299969) Homepage
          It is worth emphasizing that the NSA has said that AES 128/192/256 can be used to protect information up to the secret level, and that top secret information can be secured with AES 192 or 256. That's a pretty strong statement coming from the NSA, which if acting rationally they would not want to leave weaknesses in something that is used to secure information that would be, by definition, "very damaging to the US and its interests if released."

          Now, it is possible that such statements are just for show, but it takes a belief that they are playing an incredulously deep game that they would make those statements as a denial and deception practice.

        • Re:Very similar to the AES competition (Score:5, Informative)

          by James Youngman (3732) on Friday November 09 2007, @06:06PM (#21302359) Homepage

          If the NSA really is so good that they can outdo the entire rest of the crypto community, well then they can probably break pretty much any of the cryptosystems out there.
          Actually I think you're right, but to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, I will note that the UK government agency GCHQ [gchq.gov.uk] developed a public-key cryptosystem between 1969 and 1973 [uni-klu.ac.at], significantly before Diffie and Hellman's (apparently) ground-breaking paper. So, government agencies are quite capable of beating the public state of the art and not telling anyone about it.
          • And there's evidence that the NSA understood quite a bit more about cryptography back in the DES days based on a change they made ot it that hardened it against an as of yet unknown kind of attack.

            However being a bit ahead in terms of creating a system is real different form being far enough ahead to break systems. To mistrust the NSA on AES means you figure that they know enough to know how to break it, and that they figure the knowledge is so far advanced that no one else will figure it out. One of the NS
    • Even if that were plausible, it'd definitely be a risk worth taking. Cryptographic methods that are kept secret are never as secure as methods that are scrutinised by thousands of cryptanalysts around the world, as even the NSA itself has experienced on more than one occasion. Cryptographers, more than anyone else, are very much aware of the fact that security through obscurity just doesn't work.

    • I know SHA0 and SHA1 are broken but SHA2? I thought they're still secure to use, especially the SHA2-512. What I am missing?
      From TFS:

      because SHA-1 and the SHA-2 family share a similar design

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