RIPEMD

RIPEMD -160 (RACE Integrity Primitives Evaluation Message Digest ) is a cryptographic hash function with an output of 160 bits.

RIPEMD -160 was developed by Hans Dobbertin, Antoon Bosselaers and Bart Preneel in Europe and first published in 1996. It is an improved version of RIPEMD, which in turn is based on the design principles of MD4 and balances in terms of its strength and performance of the popular SHA-1.

RIPEMD- 160 operates on 512 -bit blocks, and performs two functions in parallel (left line and right line ) with five rounds. The algorithm is optimized for 32- bit processors.

There are also 128 -, 256 - and 320 -bit versions of this algorithm ( RIPEMD -128, RIPEMD- 256 and RIPEMD- 320). The 128 -bit version was originally intended as a substitute for RIPEMD, which was 128 bit strong as well, but a questionable security bot. The 256 - and 320 -bit versions only reduce the probability of hash collisions, but not offer greater security than RIPEMD -128 or RIPEMD- 160.

As the development of RIPEMD -160 was more open than that of SHA -1, it is more likely that this algorithm has fewer security vulnerabilities. However, since it is less popular, less cryptographers have tried to find weaknesses, which in turn, the probability of undiscovered vulnerabilities can rise.

Florian Mendel et a konstatierten in a 2006 analysis that attacks on the previous versions of RIPEMD -160 are not relevant and that until 2006 no successful crypto analysis are known. The Japanese Institute CRYPTREC recommended in 2002 as a hash function RIPEMD -160 in addition to SHA -1, SHA -256, SHA -384 and SHA- 512.

RIPEMD -160 is used, among other things, in the encryption program TrueCrypt and in the address generation of internet currency Bitcoin.