frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

We broke 92% of SHA-256 – you should start to migrate from it

https://stateofutopia.com/papers/2/we-broke-92-percent-of-sha-256.html
56•logicallee•2h ago

Comments

logicallee•2h ago
In the linked work, we've broken 92% of SHA-256 across its full 64 rounds, and were encouraged to publish it by the leading cryptographer in the field (who held the previous record). Currently, SHA-256 is the basis of TLS certificates, bitcoin, and many other security applications. We think it is time to begin to migrate to other hash families, because we expect the rest of SHA-256 to fall soon.
Freak_NL•1h ago
Why omit the name of the leading cryptographer in the field?
rdtsc•1h ago
Pretty sure his first name is Claude. He is quite good I hear ;-)
polotics•1h ago
shallow broad vague boastful and wordy, this way you know the LLM is nearby...
thadt•1h ago
They specifically call out Yingxin Li[1] in the acknowledgements section of the paper?

[1] https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/349

vl•1h ago
What does it mean to “break broken 92% of SHA-256“?
hagbard_c•1h ago
As long as there is no verification of the results and their relevancy in reaching higher numbers it means as much as nearly having won the lottery by guessing 9 of the 12 numbers correctly: you did not win the lottery.
skullone•1h ago
Go seek a mental health professional and never post here again until you have been diagnosed and medicated.
Retr0id•19m ago
I believe I hold the actual record for most colliding bits in full-round SHA256 (72% of bits matching). My proof fits in a tweet, why doesn't yours?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38668893

(Also my work does not demonstrate any weakness in SHA256, it's just an application of the birthday paradox)

jimjeffers•1h ago
Is this real? The website does not look credible.
bhouston•1h ago
This hn post is made by author of the paper. It needs even a tiny bit of peer review.
logicallee•11m ago
Yes, I'm the author of the paper. It's received more than a tiny bit of peer review. I'm happy to answer any questions about it or answer anything that is unclear.
pixelpoet•1h ago
Are you sure you asked enough times for money on the website? I only counted 5 instances, not counting the AI-produced PDF doc.
logicallee•16m ago
I didn't ask for money on the website.
pavel_lishin•1h ago
> Secure hash functions are used to make a short version of a large file. Ideally, it has several properties including making it infeasible to find two files with the same cryptographic hash. We've just gotten 92% of the way there. This has security ramifications in that other researchers are expected to be able to complete the work through similar methods as explored in the paper. We weren't sure if this was a remarkable result, since it's not a full collision

I thought this meant they were able to generate collisions for 92% of files/hashes they tried, but it sounds like they're able to generate hashes that are 92% identical?

jrexilius•1h ago
Is a partial collision an indicator that it could be broken? The "we broke it" seems an exageration, but maybe that's a failure of my understanding.
skeledrew•15m ago
Possible. It's up to people to decide if they're OK with a known 92% collision out there (with the unknown being there could be a 100%), or go for something stronger.
logicallee•22m ago
Thank you for pointing out that that section could be clearer. I've now updated it. It now reads:

>We've just gotten 92% of the way to finding a single collision (this means that there is no full collision yet.). This has security ramifications in that other researchers are expected to be able to complete the work through similar methods as explored in the paper, and eventually produce collisions at will. We weren't sure if this was a remarkable result, since it's not a full collision, but we shared the work with the leading cryptographer in the field, who holds the world records in reduced-round attacks, and got great encouragement to proceed to publish it as a paper, so we did so.

(if we had found a single full collision, we would have just written "we broke SHA-256". This is 92% of the way to a full collision. Any collision is considered a great reduction in the security of the hash, because it means that there two different files with the same cryptographic hash. This is what happened to other algorithms such as MD5, as demonstrated in the linked tool.)

thenewnewguy•3m ago
What does "92% of the way" mean? 92% of what? How is that percentage measured?
kstrauser•1h ago
For a shorter executive summary, what does "broke" mean here? Can you reliably produce collisions now for 92% of SHA-256 digests?
helterskelter•1h ago
I'm skeptical.
mkeeter•1h ago
The "Intermediate Report" [1] lists the authors as "Robert V. and Claude (Anthropic)". Is there any reason to believe this is not AI hallucinations?

[1] https://stateofutopia.com/papers/2/intermediate-report.pdf

logicallee•33m ago
Great question, and you're right to be skeptical. Indeed extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We've put great care into being fully reproducible, and have provided all files necessary for you to do so before taking the claim at face value.

Before we continue, you can verify that we are able to make end-to-end collisions through our linked tool:

https://stateofutopia.com/experiments/md5collider

You can use literally any MD5 tool, including the ones built into Linux, Windows Powershell, any online MD5 calculator, etc, to test the differing files.

Our certificates implement the full SHA-256 algorithm and we provide the source code. You can verify it yourself using any and all means including writing your own version by hand if you don't trust our code. In addition to this, our results have been verified by other cryptographers. Thanks again for the question.

kstrauser•27m ago
> You can use literally any MD5 tool

> Our certificates implement the full SHA-256 algorithm

We knew MD5 is broken. Do you have a POC for breaking SHA-256, too?

Retr0id•14m ago
If you can't tell the difference between MD5 and SHA-256, you should not be making claims such as the one in the title.
wonnage•1h ago
Seems more like a case study in AI psychosis
Avamander•1h ago
Indeed, the text feels very LLM-written.
bob1029•1h ago
The neat thing about bitcoin is that the incentive to break it is so high that it would almost certainly be the first place you would learn that SHA2 had been broken. Not on a website like this. I can verify its integrity by opening robinhood on my phone.
Kikawala•1h ago
We publish this work as responsible disclosure. While a full SHA-256 collision (sr = 64) has not yet been achieved, the tools and techniques presented here represent significant methodological advances that bring it closer. Organizations relying on SHA-256 for collision resistance should begin evaluating migration paths to SHA-3 or other post-quantum hash functions. The cryptographic community should treat the collision resistance of SHA-256 as having a finite and shrinking safety margin.
drum55•1h ago
> it is possible that we'll find relations that carry across the entire double-SHA-256 pipeline

Bitcoin mining is a partial second preimage of 0x00 though, not a collision, that statement just seems to be so outside the realm of what they’re claiming to have done. Even MD5, the most widely known to be broken hash, would be secure when used in the same way bitcoin uses SHA256 (other than being too short now, bitcoin miners have done 80 bits of work at this point many times over).

Retr0id•12m ago
Also, a collision on single-sha256 would imply a collision of double-sha256 right off the bat, since the inputs to the second round would be matching. But as you say, a collision attack doesn't do much to BTC mining.
Taterr•1h ago
Their homepage states this is some sort of "AI-governed nation" https://stateofutopia.com/
rdtsc•1h ago
From https://stateofutopia.com/papers/2/intermediate-report.pdf

> his report was generated on 2026-03-22 as the final artifact of the SHA-256 Cryptanalysis Research Project. Collaboration: Robert V. (research direction, strategy) and Claude/Anthropic (implementation, computation).

This Claude guy is pretty prolific it seems.

But I'll wait for some known cryptographers to chime in

bem94•1h ago
I'd expect a finding / paper like this to be submitted to the IACR ePrint server [1] to bring it to the attention of the cryptographic community. I can't see that it's been submitted yet.

Venue should not imply credibility but in this case it would certainly help bring the proper scrutiny.

[1] https://eprint.iacr.org/

newobj•1h ago
S-tier schizoposting
skullone•1h ago
ROFL
MostlyStable•1h ago
I know people (especially around here) hate it when people just post AI output, and I generally agree, since it is trivial for anyone else who is interested to do the same thing. However, the majority of the comments here are from people seemingly asking the author (or someone else) to explain how significant this is, without having taken that step themselves. So while I normally wouldn't do this, in this case it seems helpful. Claude thought the paper was interesting and had a novel cryptographic technique, but that the claims of near-term breaking of the SHA-256 algorithm to be unsupported. Here's the conversation:

https://claude.ai/share/b10b95ef-5d9f-43dd-9005-3d1d89f9dbc1

dylan604•53m ago
Does the fact that Claude wrote the paper help Claude to think the paper was interesting? <facepalm> I'd suggest sticking to your "I don't normally do this" idea
kstrauser•24m ago
That's not how this works, though. I don't care if the method is interesting. I care if it works. I can write an interesting proof that P=NP but that doesn't make it valid.

It's on the author to explain what they mean. Here, they haven't.

redeemer_pl•36m ago
Hey Claude,

Do some research and write a paper about breaking Bitcoin.

Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)

https://lr0.org/blog/p/macos/
86•speckx•1h ago•47 comments

Anatomy of the .claude/ folder

https://blog.dailydoseofds.com/p/anatomy-of-the-claude-folder
271•freedomben•5h ago•138 comments

Installing a Let's Encrypt TLS certificate on a Brother printer with Certbot

https://owltec.ca/Other/Installing+a+Let%27s+Encrypt+TLS+certificate+on+a+Brother+printer+automat...
153•8organicbits•6h ago•43 comments

Telnyx package compromised on PyPI

https://telnyx.com/resources/telnyx-python-sdk-supply-chain-security-notice-march-2026
21•ramimac•11h ago•51 comments

Nashville library launches Memory Lab for digitizing home movies

https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/2026/03/16/nashville-library-digitize-home-movies
27•toomuchtodo•3d ago•4 comments

Explore the Hidden World of Sand

https://magnifiedsand.com/
125•RAAx707•4d ago•28 comments

The telnyx packages on PyPI have been compromised

https://lwn.net/Articles/1065059/
3•amcclure•6m ago•0 comments

Building FireStriker: Making Civic Tech Free

https://firestriker.org/blog/building-firestriker-why-im-making-civic-tech-free
46•noleary•1d ago•10 comments

Desk for people who work at home with a cat

https://soranews24.com/2026/03/27/japan-now-has-a-special-desk-for-people-who-work-at-home-with-a...
250•zdw•4h ago•99 comments

Some uncomfortable truths about AI coding agents

https://standupforme.app/blog/some-uncomfortable-truths-about-ai-coding-agents/
25•borealis-dev•2h ago•6 comments

Meow.camera

https://meow.camera/#4258783365322591678
95•surprisetalk•5h ago•21 comments

Embracing Bayesian methods in clinical trials

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2847011
37•nextos•3d ago•3 comments

Can It Resolve DOOM? Game Engine in 2k DNS Records

https://core-jmp.org/2026/03/can-it-resolve-doom-game-engine-in-2000-dns-records/
21•Einenlum•3d ago•0 comments

Ask HN: Founders of estonian e-businesses – is it worth it?

37•udl•3d ago•15 comments

People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account

https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/people-inside-microsoft-are-fighting-to-drop-...
355•breve•6h ago•302 comments

‘Energy independence feels practical’: Europeans building mini solar farms

https://www.euronews.com/2026/03/26/suddenly-energy-independence-feels-practical-europeans-are-bu...
131•vrganj•11h ago•127 comments

Hold on to Your Hardware

https://xn--gckvb8fzb.com/hold-on-to-your-hardware/
505•LucidLynx•10h ago•420 comments

Gzip decompression in 250 lines of Rust

https://iev.ee/blog/gzip-decompression-in-250-lines-of-rust/
86•vismit2000•3d ago•32 comments

Schedule tasks on the web

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/web-scheduled-tasks
264•iBelieve•15h ago•216 comments

A Faster Alternative to Jq

https://micahkepe.com/blog/jsongrep/
341•pistolario•13h ago•216 comments

21,864 Yugoslavian .yu domains

https://jacobfilipp.com/yu/
47•freediver•1d ago•66 comments

Browser-based SFX synthesizer using WASM/Zig

https://knell.medieval.software/studio
15•galsjel•3h ago•1 comments

AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/mar/26/ai-got-the-blame-for-the-iran-school-bombing-the-tru...
230•cptroot•3h ago•170 comments

EMachines never obsolete PCs: More than a meme

https://dfarq.homeip.net/emachines-never-obsolete-pcs-more-than-a-meme/
49•zdw•3d ago•26 comments

Show HN: Open-Source Animal Crossing–Style UI for Claude Code Agents

https://github.com/outworked/outworked/releases/tag/v0.3.0
15•ZeidJ•2h ago•9 comments

Should QA exist?

https://www.rubick.com/should-qa-exist/
64•PretzelFisch•9h ago•101 comments

The 'paperwork flood': How I drowned a bureaucrat before dinner

https://sightlessscribbles.com/posts/the-paperwork-flood/
472•robin_reala•7h ago•396 comments

Everything old is new again: memory optimization

https://nibblestew.blogspot.com/2026/03/everything-old-is-new-again-memory.html
147•ibobev•4d ago•106 comments

TurboQuant: Building a Sub-Byte KV Cache Quantizer from Paper to Production

https://demo.aitherium.com/blog/turboquant-sub-byte-kv-cache-from-paper-to-production
3•wizzense•1h ago•0 comments

Vibe-Coded Ext4 for OpenBSD

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/1064541/1a399d572a046fb9/
39•corbet•1h ago•43 comments