2006 USENIX Annual Technical Conference Abstract
Pp. 85–90 of the Proceedings
Compare-by-Hash: A Reasoned Analysis
J. Black, University of Colorado, Boulder
Abstract
Compare-by-hash is the now-common practice used by systems designers
who assume that when the digest of a cryptographic hash function is
equal on two distinct files, then those files are identical. This
approach has been used in both real projects and in research efforts
(for example rysnc [16] and LBFS [12]).
A recent paper by Henson criticized this practice [8].
The present paper revisits the topic from an advocate's standpoint:
we claim that compare-by-hash is completely reasonable, and we
offer various arguments in support of this viewpoint in addition to
addressing concerns raised by Henson.
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