If SHA-256 was made by NSA, why make it public?

ranochigo

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Quote from: swogerino on January 04, 2025, 03:23:07 PM

I am studying for some Cisco Security certifications because my job needs it and I have seen there that they are talking already or at least being prepared for what they call post quantum computers encryption and algorithms type. This mean that this Sha-256 most likely can be cracked in 10-20 years as that was the time frame in the book assumed when we will be needing these next generation encryption and algorithms. I don't know why it was made public but for the moment it is one of the very strong encryption algorithms as in VPN-Virtual Private Networks site to site connections we are using it as one of the best encryption algorithm, the SHA-256.

You can read more here if you are interested in algorithms security.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/trust-center/post-quantum-cryptography.html

This is not true. SHA256 is not an encryption algorithm, and the speedup for it when using QC is not as significant as asymmetric algorithms. SHA256 will not be weakened significantly to require a change in algorithm anytime soon, but ECDSA would be entirely different when QC is viable.

One more thing, VPN are not using SHA256 for encryption of data. For the majority of them, they are using AES or similar asymmetric algorithms. SHA256 is a hashing algorithm, in VPN's context, possibly as a checksum to guarantee correctedness of certificate.

swogerino

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Quote from: AussieMat on January 03, 2025, 04:33:45 AM

Hello,

Has anyone researched or know why this algorithm was made public? What motives? Important question for Bitcoin

I am studying for some Cisco Security certifications because my job needs it and I have seen there that they are talking already or at least being prepared for what they call post quantum computers encryption and algorithms type. This mean that this Sha-256 most likely can be cracked in 10-20 years as that was the time frame in the book assumed when we will be needing these next generation encryption and algorithms. I don't know why it was made public but for the moment it is one of the very strong encryption algorithms as in VPN-Virtual Private Networks site to site connections we are using it as one of the best encryption algorithm, the SHA-256.

You can read more here if you are interested in algorithms security.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/trust-center/post-quantum-cryptography.html

NotFuzzyWarm

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Quote from: ? on January 04, 2025, 06:22:49 AM

Quote from: AussieMat on January 03, 2025, 04:33:45 AM

Hello,
Has anyone researched or know why this algorithm was made public? What motives? Important question for Bitcoin

The Bitcoin algorithm was made public to create a decentralized digital currency system that doesn't rely on traditional financial institutions. The motives behind this were to ensure transparency, security, and accessibility in financial transactions.

This topic has to do with the SHA-256 algo (and its 512 and 1024 variants) - not BTC per-se. While the Bitcoin code uses it for encryption that is not what this is about.

The NSA released it to ensure that the world's financial systems and other parties needing very strong encryption ALL have access to it and for utmost confidence in it, full access to the code used. Having everyone and their brother coming up with their own closed-source encryption raises too many questions over just how secure it would be.

FYI, now NIST is the organization that deals with encryption standards and they have already released 3 algos to handle the post Quantum Computing (PQC) world. https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/08/nist-releases-first-3-finalized-post-quantum-encryption-standards
As the quote from Satoshi said, when needed, a PQC algo can be plugged in to replace the current SHA-256 one.

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Quote from: AussieMat on January 03, 2025, 04:33:45 AM

Hello,

Has anyone researched or know why this algorithm was made public? What motives? Important question for Bitcoin

I would say the answer is probably something along the lines of why they made the TOR Project public. If you think something is the best, you want it to be battle tested. That isn’t possible if you keep something secret. Then there’s also the strength in numbers argument. If the NSA is the only one using a certain type of encryption, one can conclude that anything encrypted with that type of encryption was done by the NSA.

?

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Quote from: AussieMat on January 03, 2025, 04:33:45 AM

Hello,

Has anyone researched or know why this algorithm was made public? What motives? Important question for Bitcoin

The Bitcoin algorithm was made public to create a decentralized digital currency system that doesn't rely on traditional financial institutions. The motives behind this were to ensure transparency, security, and accessibility in financial transactions. By making the algorithm public, it allowed for open-source development, encouraging collaboration and innovation within the tech and cryptography communities. This transparency also helps to build trust among users and ensures that no single entity has control over the network.

btc_angela

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And from the man himself,

Quote from: satoshi on June 14, 2010, 03:39:50 PM

SHA-256 is very strong. It's not like the incremental step from MD5 to SHA1. It can last several decades unless there's some massive breakthrough attack.

If SHA-256 became completely broken, I think we could come to some agreement about what the honest block chain was before the trouble started, lock that in and continue from there with a new hash function.

If the hash breakdown came gradually, we could transition to a new hash in an orderly way. The software would be programmed to start using a new hash after a certain block number. Everyone would have to upgrade by that time. The software could save the new hash of all the old blocks to make sure a different block with the same old hash can't be used.

ranochigo

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For the SHA family, its intention is to replace the existing MD5 which was already broken. It's pretty trivial to make standards like SHA public because its meant to be implemented widely and keeping them proprietary and secret does nothing to help that. In addition, it costs nothing to the government and they had patented it. On a similar vein, GPS was made publicly accessible because it provides more benefits for the world rather than for the military only.

To shutdown your conspiracy theory, SHA is widely audited and there is nothing obscure about this.

AussieMat

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Hello,

Has anyone researched or know why this algorithm was made public? What motives? Important question for Bitcoin

Topic: If SHA-256 was made by NSA, why make it public? (Read 91 times)