Searching for new Internet security standard
Cryptographers compete to define a new Internet security standard; this is necessary because the current standard — the Secure Hash Algorithm 2 (SHA-2) — is starting to show its age
Cryptographers from around the world have entered their best work in a contest to find a new algorithm that will become a critical part of future communications across the Internet. Technology Review’s Erica Naone writes that the winning code will become a building block of a wide variety of Internet protocols, including those used to safeguard communications between banks and their customers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) organized the competition and plans to release a short list of the best entries by the end of this month, beginning a four-year process of painstaking analysis to find the overall winner.
