MDC-2

Abstract: We combine well-known techniques from the areas of error-correcting codes and cryptography to achieve a new type of cryptographic primitive that we refer to as a fuzzy commitment scheme. Like a conventional cryptographic commitment scheme, our fuzzy commitment scheme is both concealing and binding: it is infeasible for an attacker to learn the committed value, and also for the committer to decommit a value in more than one way. In a conventional scheme, a commitment must be opened using a unique witness, which acts, essentially, as a decryption key. By contrast, our scheme is fuzzy in the sense that it accepts a witness that is close to the original encrypting witness in a suitable metric, but not necessarily identical.This characteristic of our fuzzy commitment scheme makes it useful for applications such as biometric authentication systems, in which data is subject to random noise. Because the scheme is tolerant of error, it is capable of protecting biometric data just as conventional cryptographic techniques, like hash functions, are used to protect alphanumeric passwords. This addresses a major outstanding problem in the theory of biometric authentication. We prove the security characteristics of our fuzzy commitment scheme relative to the properties of an underlying cryptographic hash function.

Abstract: In this paper, we present new collision search attacks on the hash function SHA-1. We show that collisions of SHA-1 can be found with complexity less than 269 hash operations. This is the first attack on the full 80-step SHA-1 with complexity less than the 280 theoretical bound.

Abstract: We show that if there exists a computationally collision free function f from m bits to t bits where m > t, then there exists a computationally collision free function h mapping messages of arbitrary polynomial lengths to t-bit strings.Let n be the length of the message, h can be constructed either such that it can be evaluated in time linear in n using 1 processor, or such that it takes time O(log(n)) using O(n) processors, counting evaluations of f as one step. Finally, for any constant k and large n, a speedup by a factor of k over the first construction is available using k processors.Apart from suggesting a generally sound design principle for hash functions, our results give a unified view of several apparently unrelated constructions of hash functions proposed earlier. It also suggests changes to other proposed constructions to make a proof of security potentially easier.We give three concrete examples of constructions, based on modular squaring, on Wolfram's pseudoranddom bit generator [Wo], and on the knapsack problem.

Abstract: This Standard specifies the Secure Hash Algorithm-3 (SHA-3) family of functions on binary data. Each of the SHA-3 functions is based on an instance of the KECCAK algorithm that NIST selected as the winner of the SHA-3 Cryptographic Hash Algorithm Competition. This Standard also specifies the KECCAK-p family of mathematical permutations, including the permutation that underlies KECCAK, in order to facilitate the development of additional permutation-based cryptographic functions. The SHA-3 family consists of four cryptographic hash functions, called SHA3-224, SHA3-256, SHA3-384, and SHA3-512, and two extendable-output functions (XOFs), called SHAKE128 and SHAKE256. Hash functions are components for many important information security applications, including 1) the generation and verification of digital signatures, 2) key derivation, and 3) pseudorandom bit generation. The hash functions specified in this Standard supplement the SHA-1 hash function and the SHA-2 family of hash functions that are specified in FIPS 180-4, the Secure Hash Standard. Extendable-output functions are different from hash functions, but it is possible to use them in similar ways, with the flexibility to be adapted directly to the requirements of individual applications, subject to additional security considerations.