Talk:Merkle-Damgård hash function
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[edit] Oops
I just read through source code for about ten of the more well known hash algorithms. It seems they do not work exactly as I thought. That is, there are some factual errors in this article. (All my fault, I inserted those errors.) I will correct those errors in the article after I thought a bit more about it and done some checking in my books. --David Göthberg 19:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Name of this article
How about "Merkle-Damgård hash construction"?
I originally choose the name "Merkle-Damgård construction" for this article since that is what Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Menezes & Co calls it. (Note that Merkle-Damgård strengthening just means the length padding, not the whole construction.)
User:Mangojuice changed it to "Merkle-Damgård hash function". I agree that using the term "hash" in the name is very nice. But in itself it is not a hash function. It only becomes a hash function when used together with a compression function. Of course hash functions that use Merkle-Damgård (just about all hash functions out there) are "Merkle-Damgård hash functions". So perhaps we should use the name "Merkle-Damgård hash construction" or "Merkle-Damgård hash construct"? Oh, and is there any difference in meaning between "construction" and "construct"? As far as I can understand from the dictionaries I have both can be used in this case.
--David Göthberg 11:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
- I think "construction" is more idiomatic within the field. — Matt Crypto 12:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Earliest use?
References 1 and 2 are dated 1989, but Merkle used the construction in his 1979 Ph.D. thesis (see http://www.merkle.com/papers/Thesis1979.pdf, chapter 2). Unless there's a reference to something earlier than 1979, Merkle's thesis would be the first use (and the text should be changed accordingly).
