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Hashing

RIPEMD: Deep Dive

In the early 1990s, Europe wanted its own cryptographic primitives—independent of American designs. The result was RIPEMD, a hash function born from a multinational research project that would eventually find its way into Bitcoin. This is the complete story of the RIPEMD family. Origins: The RIPE Project (1988-1992) RIPEMD

HAVAL: From Hero to Zero

In the 1990s, cryptographers were searching for hash functions that could offer flexibility without sacrificing security. HAVAL emerged as an ambitious answer—a hash function that let users choose their own security parameters. For a brief moment, it seemed like the future of hashing. Then came 2004. This is the

SHA-3: Deep Dive

SHA-3 is the odd one out in the SHA family. Unlike SHA-1 and SHA-2 (which share the same NSA-designed Merkle-Damgård structure), SHA-3 was selected through a public competition and uses a completely different design called Keccak. This post explores the entire SHA-3 family, including its unique extendable-output functions (XOFs). The

SHA-2: Deep Dive

While MD5 and SHA-1 have fallen, SHA-2 stands strong. Published in 2001, the SHA-2 family has weathered over two decades of cryptanalysis and remains the workhorse of modern cryptography. This post explores every member of the SHA-2 family, how they work, and when to use each one. The SHA-2 Family

MD4: From Hero to Zero

Before MD5, there was MD4. Designed for speed above all else, MD4 became the foundation for an entire generation of hash functions—and a cautionary tale about prioritizing performance over security. Today, MD4 is so thoroughly broken that collisions can be computed by hand. This post traces MD4's

SHA-1: From Hero to Zero

For two decades, SHA-1 was the backbone of internet security—protecting SSL certificates, signing software, and verifying Git commits. Then in 2017, Google shattered it. Literally. This post traces SHA-1's journey from government-approved standard to cryptographic casualty, culminating in the SHAttered attack that proved its collision resistance was

MD5: From Hero to Zero

In 1991, MD5 was the gold standard of cryptographic hash functions. Today, it's a cautionary tale in cryptographic history. This post traces MD5's journey from trusted workhorse to deprecated relic, and the attacks that brought it down. What is MD5? MD5 (Message-Digest Algorithm 5) is a