Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

> seed = SHA256(seed + "reseed") may have fixed points, or short cycles.

If it does, doesn't that mean it's flawed as a cryptographic hash?




No, it is a property of all hash functions - if you reduce input of arbitrary length to few bytes there will always be short circles. It is why you should always think twice before feeding output from one hash function call to another as the set of possible output values might be smaller and smaller with every repetition.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: