[Monotone-devel] Re: SHA-1 Broken

[graydon hoare]

Dean Kusler wrote:
> I'm sure many of y'all have already seen this, but I hadn't seen it 
> posted to the list yet. Preliminary details on Bruce Schneier's blog.
>
> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html
>
> Of course, collision attacks probably aren't that important for 
> Monotone's use of SHA-1, since you'd need to have a malicious person 
> with write access to your database, in which case you're probably 
> screwed anyways.

you'd also need an attacker wealthy enough to scrape up 2^69 work units, 
in which case you're also probably screwed anyways.

but we should, as a matter of courtesy, update our standard hash to 
something stronger soon. as soon as there's a community consensus about 
which hash in particular represents "something stronger".

it's worth noting that any competing system which uses digital 
signatures as a security mechanism is equally weakened by this exciting 
development.

-graydon