Susan Landau has an article in the upcoming March issue of Notices of the AMS: "Find me a hash."
There is a short preview of the article here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/ams-dsa020106.php it even includes a "non-public" (whatever that means) link to the paper itself: http://www.ams.org/staff/jackson/fea-landau.pdf Readers of the cryptography list may not learn anything new from it, but it seems like a nice summary of the present state of affairs. The article opens by calling hash function the duct tape of cryptography, and ends with these words: What is the theory of hash functions? It is not often that mathematicians are asked to develop a theory for duct tape, but there is a clear and present need to do so now for cryptographic hash functions. - Harald --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]