SHA256

Advanced programming^[1]

SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) is a set of cryptographic hash functions designed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) and first published in 2001.^[2]. It would be really helpful if you understood hashing and cryptographic hashing to appreciate this topic.

SHA256 is complex. Watch this video for an appreciation:

Even a small change in the message will (with overwhelming probability) result in a mostly different hash, due to the avalanche effect. For example, adding a period to the end of the following sentence changes almost half (111 out of 224) of the bits in the hash:

SHA224("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog")
0x 730e109bd7a8a32b1cb9d9a09aa2325d2430587ddbc0c38bad911525
SHA224("The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.")
0x 619cba8e8e05826e9b8c519c0a5c68f4fb653e8a3d8aa04bb2c8cd4c

Feel free to use this resource to see how SHA256 hashes change with just one space or character:

https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/sha256.html

References

[1] ttp://www.flaticon.com/

[2] ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2

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