3 ms·
SHA has nothing to do with prime numbers. Bitcoin also has nothing to do with prime numbers. Further, prime numbers are only useful in a very specific case of
by gibybo 13y ago
SHA has nothing to do with prime numbers. Bitcoin also has nothing to do with prime numbers.
Further, prime numbers are only useful in a very specific case of cryptography, nowhere near 'all encryption'.
- drakaal 13y agoNothing to do with prime numbers? http://www.femto-second.com/papers/SHA256LimitedStatisticalAnalysis.pdf http://www.femto-second.com/papers/SHA256LimitedStatisticalA... http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4634.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4634.txt http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/548.pdf http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/548.pdf http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/548.pdf http://eprint.iacr.org/2010/548.pdf
- gibybo 13y agoYes, nothing to do with prime numbers. SHA-2 uses some constants. A lot of cryptography needs constants for various reasons. There is always some concern that the creator chose specific constants that weaken or give them a backdoor to the crypto scheme. To reduce this concern, they often choose constants from some simple mathematical basis, perhaps the numbers '1234567890', or digits of pi, etc. In SHA-2's case, they used the first 32 bits of the fractional parts of the square roots of the first n primes. The numbers they use are not primes, nor are primes useful in any way for attacking SHA. The algorithm still has nothing to do with prime numbers.