Lecture 8: Secure Hash Algorithm (Feb 17)

Today’s class started out differently, the projector in the normal classroom was missing and we were moved to another room without a projector. Dr. Gunes first reviewed AES and cryptographic hash functions from lecture 7. He then went over Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) in detail. There are currently three different versions of SHA. They are SHA-0, SHA-1, and SHA-2. Submissions for an open competition for SHA-3 were due in October 2008 and publication of the new standard is scheduled for 2012. To implement SHA, six steps are required. They can be found in detail in the lecture slides. SHA-0 and SHA-1 both give a 160-bit message digest. SHA-2 has a variable digest size of 224, 256, 384, and 512 bits. Dr. Gunes also mentioned that when submitting homeworks, try not to include images because it takes much longer to print.