time/date hash

17 Dec 2003

      Interesting note in current issue of PC Magazine about how DOS 4 and later generates volume ID numbers. Neil Rubenking describes a time/date hash of the form:
  month plus seconds
  day plus hundredths of seconds
  high byte of the year plus hours
  low byte of the year plus minutes

I've actually been thinking about such a time/date hash during idle brain cycles.  Any thoughts on how secure such a hash is, as in how collision proof if the input date is from today forward 50 years?

thanks,

Jerry Whiting
72627.746@compuserve.com  <- til our server is back up...