From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Subject: Re: Val Henson's critique of hash-based content storage systems Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:14:09 -0700 Message-ID: <42729591.8020108@zytor.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: git@vger.kernel.org X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Fri Apr 29 22:25:29 2005 Return-path: Received: from vger.kernel.org ([12.107.209.244]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1DRc2l-0006w4-UD for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Fri, 29 Apr 2005 22:25:00 +0200 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262947AbVD2UUH (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:20:07 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262930AbVD2US3 (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:18:29 -0400 Received: from terminus.zytor.com ([209.128.68.124]:5819 "EHLO terminus.zytor.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262942AbVD2UOV (ORCPT ); Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:14:21 -0400 Received: from [10.4.1.13] (yardgnome.orionmulti.com [209.128.68.65]) (authenticated bits=0) by terminus.zytor.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j3TKEFUm013947 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 29 Apr 2005 13:14:15 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2-1.3.2 (X11/20050324) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en To: Rob Jellinghaus In-Reply-To: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-5.9 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.0.2 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.2 (2004-11-16) on terminus.zytor.com Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Rob Jellinghaus wrote: > I assume most people here have read this, but just in case: > > http://www.usenix.org/events/hotos03/tech/full_papers/henson/henson.pdf > I have to pull out the big flamethrower, especially against someone I consider a friend, but that paper is a classic example on how many people don't understand probability. The *only* valid criticism in it is that we may not know enough about the future validity of cryptographic hash function, however, she also does not analyze the failure scenarios applicable to those kinds of failures barely at all. In the end, the whole paper centers around "this makes me feel nervous", without really justifying it in any reasonable way. It is just one of many papers on cryptoanalysis written by someone with no real background in the field. It really saddens me to see someone like Val fall into that particular trap. -hpa