Re:Maybe Skip SHA-3
by kobeya on Wednesday May 31, 2017 @03:01PM
(#14455029)
Replying here because you said most of the things I was going to say. This article just makes me sad -- Keccak was chosen for SHA-3 specifically because it turned out SHA-2 wasn't as broken as we feared, and although slow Keccak brings to the table cryptographic diversity and the slew of cool things that can be done with a sponge construction that are now possible using standard cryptographic primitives. NIST made clear that by the time of finalist selection, the point of SHA-3 was NOT to replace SHA-2. OP should know better.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
But NIST didn't make that clear. The thing they made clear is in fact the exact opposite and the OP mentions it. They called it SHA-3, saying to the world that this was a better SHA-2. If they wanted to make clear that SHA-3 wasn't to replace SHA-2, they should really have named it something else. Now everybody not knowledgeable to the details will sadly assume the 3 is better than the 2.
3 doesn't imply better, just n+1.
People who aren't sweating the details aren't the intended audience for NIST.
They said it explicitly ehen they announced the winner.
It is better.
NIST made clear that by the time of finalist selection, the point of SHA-3 was NOT to replace SHA-2. OP should know better.
That's exactly what this post is about. That we shouldn't replace SHA-2 with SHA-3, just what NIST ordered :)