The Architecture of Cryptographic Hashes

Understanding, Designing, and Building Hash Functions from First Principles

The Architecture of Cryptographic Hashes takes you from the history of cryptographic hashing to the architecture behind it-and finally to designing your own.

Beginning with the origins of cryptographic hash functions, the book explores landmark constructions and the attacks that exposed their weaknesses. Through case studies of MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3, you will see how cryptographic designs evolved, why certain choices were made, and what happens when those choices fail.

The journey then moves inside the algorithms. You will learn how compression functions, permutations, message schedules, Boolean operations, modular arithmetic, diffusion, padding, rounds, state sizes, and output sizes work together to create a hash function.

But understanding existing algorithms is only the beginning.

The book then turns from analysis to creation-guiding you through the decisions involved in designing, building, testing, and evaluating your own hashing algorithm.

This is not just a book about learning how hashes work.

It is a journey from history to architecture, from architecture to design, and from design to creation.

By the final pages, you won't just understand cryptographic hash functions.

You'll know how to think like their designer.