Hacker News Reader

That is not true. There is nothing provable about hash functions. The best that you can say is that there is no known algorithm that can calculate a pre-image for any given hash function in less than some super linear time. You certainly cannot prove that no such algorithm exists. If you can prove it please publish a paper you will be revolutionize mathematics.

View on HN

> The best that you can say is that there is no known algorithm that can calculate a pre-image for any given hash function in less than some super linear time.

If your algorithm is not linear in the size of the key/hash space, it's not a brute force algorithm. It's a cryptographic break.

There is no proof that such algorithm does not exist, nor is there any proof that it does. Therefore you can't claim it definitely does. That's my point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com