But don’t worry, I won’t bore you with technical jargon or complicated math equations.
To set the stage, what are these hash functions? Well, they’re basically algorithms that take input data (like text or images) and output a fixed-size string of characters called a “hash” or “digest”. This is useful for all sorts of reasons from verifying the integrity of files to securing passwords.
Now BLAKE2b, which stands for “BLAKE 2 with 128-bit hash function and block size of 512 bits”. It was designed by a team of experts (including Jean-Philippe Aumasson, Samuel Neves, Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn, and Christian Winnerlein) based on SHA-3 finalist BLAKE.
To implement this hash function in Python using the pyblake2 library, you can use the following code:
# Import the blake2 library
import blake2
# Create a new instance of the hash object with 128-bit output size and block size of 512 bits
# The Blake2b function takes in two parameters: digest_size and key
# The digest_size parameter specifies the output size of the hash in bits
# The key parameter is optional and can be used for keyed hashing
hash = blake2.Blake2b(digest_size=128)
# Update the hash with input data (in this case, some text)
# The update function takes in a bytes-like object as input
# In this case, we are using the b prefix to convert the string "Hello, world!" into a bytes object
hash.update(b"Hello, world!")
# Finalize the hash and get its output as a bytes object
# The finalize function returns the hash digest as a bytes object
output = hash.finalize()
Pretty simple, right? Now SIGMA which stands for “Secure Hash with Input-Output Length Flexibility”. It was designed by Daniel J. Bernstein (the same guy who created the ChaCha cipher) and is known for its speed and security.
To implement this hash function in Python using the pyblake2 library, you can use the following code:
# Import the blake2 library
import blake2
# Create a new instance of the hash object with 128-bit output size and block size of 512 bits (same as BLAKE2b)
# The Blake2s function creates a hash object with the specified parameters
# The digest_size parameter determines the output size of the hash in bits
# The key, salt, and personal parameters are optional and can be used for added security
hash = blake2.Blake2s(digest_size=128, key=None, salt=None, personal=None)
# Update the hash with input data (in this case, some text) and a secret key for added security
# The update function takes in a bytes object as input and adds it to the hash
# In this case, the input is the string "Hello, world!" encoded as bytes
hash.update(b"Hello, world!")
# Finalize the hash and get its output as a bytes object
# The finalize function completes the hashing process and returns the final hash as a bytes object
output = hash.finalize()
As you can see, implementing SIGMA is very similar to BLAKE2b except that we’re using the Blake2s class instead of Blake2b (which adds support for secret keys). This makes it perfect for situations where you need added security and privacy.
Implementing hash functions in Python with BLAKE2b and SIGMA is easy as pie just remember to use them wisely, and always keep your data safe and secure. Later!