Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2010/548

SHA-512/256

Shay Gueron, Simon Johnson, Jesse Walker

Abstract: With the emergence of pervasive 64 bit computing we observe that it is more cost effective to compute a SHA-512 than it is to compute a SHA-256 over a given size of data. We propose a standard way to use SHA-512 and truncate its output to 256 bits. For 64 bit architectures, this would yield a more efficient 256 bit hashing algorithm, than the current SHA-256. We call this method SHA-512/256. We also provide a method for reducing the size of the SHA-512 constants table that an implementation will need to store.

Category / Keywords: Cryptographic protocols

Date: received 26 Oct 2010, last revised 18 Nov 2010

Contact author: shay at math haifa ac il

Available formats: PDF | BibTeX Citation

Note: Added an optional truncation method.

Version: 20101118:153903 (All versions of this report)

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