| |||||||||||
An attempt to backdoor the kernelAn attempt to backdoor the kernelPosted Nov 13, 2003 9:43 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524)In reply to: An attempt to backdoor the kernel by lm Parent article: An attempt to backdoor the kernel Actually no. You're wrong. A Cryptographically strong hash-function (such as sha1) does *not* assume that the inputs are random. On the contrary, it is made under the assumption not only that the inputs are non-random (as changesets are), but even that the inputs may be deliberately choosen so as to provoke a collision. A hash-function is cryptographically strong even if in this scenario, the chanse of collisions still is no bigger than the mathemathical minimum 1 in 2^num_bits. That is, there is no (known) way of generating different strings such that the probability that the strings have identical sha1sum is higher than 2^num_bits. It's still true that two changesets (or files or whatever) migth be identical trough pure dumb luck, but if I where you, I'd find something else to worry about, the chanse that a comsic ray will flip a bit in your ram and cause the program to give the wrong result is probably much much higher.
(Log in to post comments)
|
|||||||||||