Comments on: MD5/SHA collisions cont http://www.nobugs.org/blog/archives/2004/08/18/md5sha-collisions-cont/ Thoughts of a software engineer Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:02:56 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Andrew Birkett http://www.nobugs.org/blog/archives/2004/08/18/md5sha-collisions-cont/#comment-211 Andrew Birkett Thu, 19 Aug 2004 08:14:03 +0000 http://www.nobugs.org/blog/archives/2004/08/18/md5sha-collisions-cont/#comment-211 They are similar, but not identical. The first difference is about 3/4 along the first line. Message A has 87 whereas message B has 07. If anything, being able to make small changes in a message without affecting the hash is more interesting than large changes. Eg. "Please transfer 100UKP into Andrew's bank account" could become "Please transfer 900UKP into Andrew's bank account". But thankfully, we're a long way away from making arbitary changes to arbitary messages like that! They are similar, but not identical. The first difference is about 3/4 along the first line. Message A has 87 whereas message B has 07.

If anything, being able to make small changes in a message without affecting the hash is more interesting than large changes. Eg. “Please transfer 100UKP into Andrew’s bank account” could become “Please transfer 900UKP into Andrew’s bank account”.

But thankfully, we’re a long way away from making arbitary changes to arbitary messages like that!

]]> By: Jules http://www.nobugs.org/blog/archives/2004/08/18/md5sha-collisions-cont/#comment-210 Jules Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:39:27 +0000 http://www.nobugs.org/blog/archives/2004/08/18/md5sha-collisions-cont/#comment-210 messageA.pl and messageB.pl look identical... messageA.pl and messageB.pl look identical…

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