Nanashi comments on A pair of free information security tools I wrote - LessWrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (97)
I'm downvoting this comment because it's misleading.
First of all, no one has ever found an SHA-2 hash collision yet. Second of all, the chances of two SHA-2 hashes colliding is about 1 in 1 quattuorvigintillion. It's so big I had to look up what the number name was. It's 1 with 77 zeroes after it. We're talking universe-goes-into-heat-death-before-it-happens type odds. Only under the most absurd definition of "quite often" could anyone ever reasonably claim that a cryptographic hash function like SHA-2 "quite often" has collisions.
Not that I disagree with your general point, but... 77 isn't a multiple of 3.
Why does it need to be a multiple of 3?
(SHA-2 = 2^256 = 1*10^77)
You wrote that the odds were 1 in 1 quattuorvigintillion. I was under the impression that all "-illion"s have exponents that are multiples of 3.
Ahhhh. I misread the output on Wolfram Alpha. You're right. I'll leave it in the original post for posterity, but also for the record, it's actually 1 in 100 quattuorvigintillion
(That's what I get for trying to be dramatic)