BHA-160: Constructional Design of Hash Function based on NP-hard Problem

Abstract

Secure hash function is used to protect the integrity of the message transferred on the unsecured network. Changes on the bits of the sender's message are recognized by the message digest produced by the hash function. Hash function is mainly concerned with data integrity, where the data receiver needs to verify whether the message has been altered by eavesdropping by checking the hash value appended with the message. To achieve this purpose, we have to use a secure hash function that is able to calculate the hash value of any message. In this paper, we introduce an alternative hash function based on NP-hard problem. The chosen NP-hard problem is known as Braid Conjugacy problem. This problem has proved to be secure against cryptanalysis attacks.