Message authentication with one-way hash functions

The authors introduce encryption-free message authentication based entirely on the use of one-way hash functions. It is shown that fast one-way hash functions such as MD4 can be used as a foundation for some relatively novel implementations of security services. In particular, simple and inexpensive secret prefix and secret suffix methods provide protection against message substitution attacks when used in conjunction with a strong one-way hash function (which itself protects against message modification).<
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