[Distutils] Proposal: drop md5 for sha256

[PJ Eby]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Jeroen Dekkers <jeroen at dekkers.ch> wrote:

> And yes, attacks on md5 will only get better, so we should migrate to
> better hashes in the future.


No, because that's not what the RECORD hashes are for.  It's not an
intrusion detection system, it's an installer conflict and "oops I edited
the wrong file" checker.

People who are upset because md5 is low security are correctly
understanding that this system *provides no security*.  We are not
promising ANY security, so *not* using a secure hash is actually
preferable.  The goal is data integrity against accidental overwrite by
dumb installer tools (e.g. distutils) and accidental edits, not security
against malicious tampering.
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