On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 01:21:04PM +0000, hru...@gmail.com wrote: > Raimo Niskanen <raimo+open...@erix.ericsson.se> wrote: > > > When you have two different real world contents the collision probability > > is just that; 2^-160 for SHA-1. It is when you deliberately craft a > > second content to match a known hash value there may be weaknesses > > in cryptographic hash functions, but this is not what rsync nor Git > > does, as Marc Espie pointed out in this thread. > > You have strings A and B, and you know only that hash(A)=hash(B): what > is the probability that A=B? 2^-160?
No, that's never the problem. You have a *given* string A, and another string B. The problem you are describing is a different problem that leads straight to the birthday paradox... I don't know if the issue lies with your mastery of the english language, or with your understanding of the issue. But you still sound very much confused.
