Hash function

A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values.

Properties

1. Order should matter, should be very unlikely for two messages two have a hash collision
2. Examples of good hash functions
   1. MD5: compute a 128-bit message digest in a 4-step process
   2. SHA-1: US NIST standard, 160-bit digest
   3. SHA-256 and SHA-512 are more secure

Homomorphic Hashes

bromberg_sl2 is hash function that provides a monoid homomorphism

This means there is a cheap operation * such that given strings s1 and s2, H(s1 ++ s2) = H(s1) * H(s2)