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'First ever' SHA-1 hash collision calculated. All it took were five clever brains... and 6,610 years of processor time

Kiwi
Boffin

What would have been truly clever if the documents had differed by more than 0.0147%, all that work and to make it work they change next to nothing.

What if it's an executable or source code, and that 0.0147% change defeats some sort of password checking or other security routine? Maybe it changes a variable (if password=correct set correctpass=1 else correctpass=0) to a constant (set correctpass=1)1? How many bytes would that need?

1 Ok, probably not even close to any RW code but I hope you get the idea. If not, back to remedial English comprehension for you..

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