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You would? That’s not what I’m doing: "bucketing". I always assume good, but look at everything closely, and call it out if I see it. I respond to what’s there individually.

If you're trying to be friendly you got a funny way about it. What’s your philosophical question?






The one at the root of the thread: "why would I ever use a hash that's slower than the fast, 'insecure' hashes, and isn't a serious cryptographically secure hash". This comes up a bunch!

Rainstorm is serious, but not yet publicly vetted. Anyway, I thought that might be your question. You don't have any answers?

If not...Oh well, you might have to wait until it gets analyzed a lot. Use Rainbow now without fear: fast, statistically great, and unlikely collisions - which makes most uses better. As someone else put it: "fastest 128-bit and 256-bit non-crypto hash, passes all tests, and under 140 source lines of code."


Why do you expect cryptography researchers to analyze your hash? That's maybe the question I should have started with.

Probably is. Why do you not expect them to?

I'm sure they will eventually, not too long. What's your big concern / lack of confidence here?

In the meantime you can take care of it and nurture it by encouraging people to analyze it, using your influential voice for good.


I'd be happy to if I understood better why someone would want to undertake that project, which is why I asked. There is an enormous literature on cryptographic hashing; where does your hash fit into it?

Nice question! Rainstorm pulls from a rich history of ciphers and cryptohashes. It’s based on ARX-like mixing (though it swaps addition for subtraction—hence XSR: XOR, Subtract, Rotate) to create non-linearity, while borrowing structural ideas from Feistel networks, sponge constructions, and Merkle–Damgård iteration. It fits into the “experimental hybrid” category, exploring whether combining paradigms can offer fresh resilience or reveal new weaknesses. Definitely more to expand on, and you can read more, here: https://dosaygo-research.github.io/rain/paper/crypto-note.pd...

Hopefulyl this gives an overview of some of the historical influences and inspirations.




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