file and then send the file and its hash separately. Then the person receiving the file can run a hash on the file to see if it matches the hash that was sent. If it does, then that means no one has changed the file in transitCryptographic hashes are used in day-day life like in digital signatures, message authentication codes, manipulation detection, fingerprints, checksums (message integrity check), hash tables, password storage and much more. They are also used in sending messages over a network for security or storing messages in databases.
There are many hash functions defined in the “hashlib” library in python.
Some of the most used hash functions are:
MD5: Message digest algorithm producing a 128 bit hash value. This is widely used to check data integrity. It is not suitable for use in other fields due to the security vulnerabilities of MD5.
SHA: Group of algorithms designed by the U.S's NSA that are part of the U.S Federal Information processing standard. These algorithms are used widely in several cryptographic applications. The message length ranges from 160 bits to 512 bits.
Functions associated :
encode() : Converts the string into bytes to be acceptable by hash function.
digest() : Returns the encoded data in byte format.
hexdigest() : Returns the encoded data in hexadecimal formaT
