Implementation of MD6

Abstract

Distributed Computing and Network Communication has revolutionized the face of modern computing. But this includes serious security concerns like verifying the integrity and authenticity of the transmitted data. The sender and the receiver communicating over an insecure channel essentially require a method by which the information transmitted by the sender can be easily authenticated by the receiver as “unmodified” (authentic). Techniques such as Encryption can protect against passive attacks like eavesdropping but for active attack like falsification of data, Message Authentication Code (MAC) is needed. A modern technique that relies on a related family of functions called Hash Functions provides message authentication. Cryptographic Hash Functions have many applications such as Digital Signatures, Time Stamping Methods and File Modification Detection Methods. MD6 is one such modern well-known cryptographic hash function. In the subsequent sections we shall analyze the software implementation of MD6 and its performance in various scenarios.