[Python-Dev] Hash collision security issue (now public)

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:57:07 +0100
Armin Ronacher <armin.ronacher at active-4.com> wrote:
> 
> - Option c: Random salt at runtime
>   + Easy to implement
>   - impossible to synchronize
>   - breaks unittests in the same way as a compiled in salt would do

This option would have my preference. I don't think hash() was ever
meant to be "synchronizable". Already using a 32-bit Python will give
you different results from a 64-bit Python.

As for breaking unittests, these tests were broken in the first place.
hash() does change from time to time.

> Where to add the salt to?  Unicode strings and bytestrings (byte
> objects) I guess since those are the most common offenders.  Sometimes
> tuples are keys of dictionaries but in that case a contributing factor
> to the hash is the string in the tuple anyways.

Or it could be a process-wide constant for all dicts. If the constant
is additive as proposed by Mark the impact should be negligible.
(but the randomness must be good enough)

Regards

Antoine.