A message digest algorithm represents the functionality of an one-way hash function for computing a fixed sized data value (message digest, hash) from input data of arbitrary size.
A message digest algorithm represents the functionality of an one-way hash function for computing a fixed sized data value (message digest, hash) from input data of arbitrary size.
The length of the resulting hash value usually is shorter than the length of the input data. Using a one-way hash function will make it easy to compute the hash from the given data, but hard to go the reverse way for calculating the input data when only the hash is known. Furthermore, a proper hash function should avoid any collision, meaning that it has to be hard to find two different messages producing the same hash value.
The GOST3411 message digest algorithm produces a 256-bit hash-value of the given input data.
Source: http://javadoc.iaik.tugraz.at/iaik_jce/current/iaik/security/md/GOST3411.html
