The concept of randomness is often regarded as a cornerstone of fairness, security, and predictability in both physical and digital environments. Randomness must be used to ensure impartiality, protect sensitive information, and ensure integrity, whether it is determining which team kicks off a match by coin toss or securely securing billions of online transactions with cryptographic keys.
However, in the digital age, it is often very challenging and resource-consuming to generate true randomness.
Because of this limitation, computer scientists and engineers have turned to hash functions as a tool to solve this problem.
Because of this limitation, computer scientists and engineers have turned to hash functions as a tool to solve this problem.
Hash functions are mathematical algorithms that mix input data in an unpredictable fashion, yielding fixed-length outputs. Although these outputs are not truly random, they are designed to mimic randomness as closely as possible.
Historically, this practical substitution has been based on the widely accepted theoretical assumption of a random oracle model, which holds that the outputs of well-designed hash functions are indistinguishable from genuine randomness. As a result of this model, numerous cryptographic protocols have been designed and analysed, enabling secure communication, digital signatures, and consensus mechanisms, which have established it as a foundational pillar in cryptographic research.