Re: SHA-1 variables

From: Bryan Olson (fakeaddress_at_nowhere.org)
Date: 04/25/03 

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 14:13:54 GMT

Last Man Standing wrote:
> The SHA-1 algorithm uses five variables which are initialized by the
> following numbers (in hexadecimal format): 0x67452301, 0xefcdab89,
> 0x98badcfe, 0x01325476, 0xc3d2e1f0. Is there anything special about
> these numbers?

Well, the first four are the ones Rivest chose for MD4 and MD5.
The bytes are in reverse order, but MD4 and MD5 are little-
endian, while SHA-1 is big-endian, so really they're the same.

I believe they were chosen arbitrarily. 

-- 
--Bryan

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