The Davies–Meyer hash function is a construction for a hash function based on a block cipher, where the length in bits of the hash result is equal to the block length of the block cipher. A hash function is a cryptographic algorithm that takes input strings of arbitrary (or very large) length and maps these to short fixed length output strings. The Davies–Meyer hash function is an unkeyed cryptographic hash function which may have the following properties: preimage resistance, second preimage resistance and collision resistance; these properties may or may not be achieved depending on the properties of the underlying block cipher.
In the following, the block length and key length of the block cipher will be denoted with n and k respectively. The encryption with the block cipher E using the key K will be denoted with E K (.).
The Davies–Meyer scheme is an iterated hash function with a compression function that maps k + n bits to n bits:
References
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Preneel, B. (2005). Davies–Meyer Hash Function. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-23483-7_96
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