On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 11:57:36 -0500, David Shaw said:

Yes it is. Assuming this is true, we must start migrating away from SHA-1. Actually, we should start this anyway - even the NIST recommends moving away from SHA-1 for long-term security.

The real problem with the breakthrough is, that it seems that they have developed a new cryptoanalytical method and that might pave the way for further improvements. Over the last 2 decades the art of cryptoanalysis has changed dramatically in the area of symmetric ciphers. This will probably also happen to hash algorithms now. There is however a huge problem replace SHA-1 by something else from now to tomorrow: Other algorithms are not as well anaylyzed and compared against SHA-1 as for example AES to DES are; so there is no immediate successor of SHA-1 of whom we can be sure to withstand the possible new techniques. Second, SHA-1 is tightly integrated in many protocols without a fallback algorithms (OpenPGP: fingerprints, MDC, default signature algorithm and more). Salam-Shalom, Werner _______________________________________________ Gnupg-users mailing list Gnupg-users@gnupg.org http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'