Back from a very long break and hoping to keep pushing on this journey towards going under the hood of the technology and concepts underneath Ethereum
There are many changes in the world of Ethereum, and I might cover some of the topics as we move along, but for the curious, have a look at this excellent link about the next generation of Ethereum labeled ETH 2.0. One more note I am dropping the Fortnite theme, this chapter is going to be brief but essential, I will be adding useful links as we cover:
- What is Hashing?
- Why Hashing?
- Keccak Cryptographic hash function
- Ethereum keys and values
- Summary
- Onward
What is Hashing:
Hashing is an algorithm function that given input string will always return an output of a fixed length called a “Hash”. I am simplifying this concept in a few paragraphs, but that is the essence of a Hash function as depicted in the picture below:
For additional reference regarding hashing, refer to:
Why Hashing?:
Hashing provides some advantages than other algorithms like lists or arrays due to its two main properties, 1) Speed of retrieving data, which remains almost constant regardless of the 2)Size of the data, and the other being using less disk space to store the dataset. Here is an excellent reference that highlights on why to use Hashing.
Keccak Cryptographic Hash functions:
With our knowledge of Hashing, let’s discuss a little bit about the Cryptographic Hash function and in some minor detail, about Keccak Cryptographic hash function.
A cryptographic function is a particular type of Hash function which has some additional feature, applying a cryptographic hash function to a key will result in :
- A collision-free: No two different values can produce the same hash
- Secure: A reasonable randomness will result in a secure hash
- An input to a hash function will always result in the same message digest
There is a difference between a hash and a cryptographic hash function, the StackExchange discussion reference below provides an insightful distinction.
Let’s look at the grumpy cat picture below which is the input, and after applying a cryptographic hash function, the output is a hash
and a slight change in our grumpy cat picture will result in a completely different hash
Ethereum yellow/white paper specifies a cryptographic hash function “keccak” to satisfy those essential properties
Keccak-256 is a sponge cryptographic hash function developed with one of its focus, being speed. Similar to a sponge, Keccak has attributes of absorbing. Squeeze and release. For a given message “M” Keccak hash function will perform a series of “absorb” and “squeeze” at a certain speed, the result would be the message hash Z as depicted in the diagram below, notice the absorb and squeeze operation.
Here is my representation of the key being absorbed and released
Try to spend some time on this insightful discussion on StackExchange regarding Keccak256 cryptographic hash function for additional details:
Note: Ethereum 2.0 will be switching to SHA-256
Ethereum keys and values:
Ethereum stores its data in a lookup table of keys and values. While performing those lookup functions speed, security is of important priority; Cryptographic hash functions provide a way to accomplish to achieve those goals, back to the Yellow Paper specification:
Let us expand the above expression to a simple key/value pair table which translates to something like the Table below, the key size according to the specification is 32 bytes.
+-----------------------+-----------+
| Keccak( Keys ) | RLP( Val )|
+-----------------------+-----------+
| HASH 1 | Value 1 |
| HASH 2 | Value 2 |
| HASH 3 | Value 3 |
+-----------------------+-----------+Assume that the above the table keeps growing, one of the visible results will be a decline in search time results. Using a hash function and specifically, a cryptographic hash function can help perform a quick lookup for values.
In the upcoming articles, we will peek into Keys, but for now, let us assume that keys as a combination of a publicly visible and secure private hash value.
To illustrate a simple example of a collection of keys and values, I created a simple k,v pair where k=>{“12345”,”67890"} and v=>{“eth_1”, “eth_2”} in elixir and created a hash using a SHA256 cryptographic hash function
If we translate this to a simple table of keys, values, and the hash function, it might look like something like the table below which is a loose representation of a table of hashes or aptly referred to as “Hash tables”:
+-----------------------+-----------+--------------------+
| Keys | Val | SHA256(k,v) |
+-----------------------+-----------+--------------------|
| 12345 | eth_1 |9891cc393003c1......|
| 67899 | eth_2 |5c35ec46226817a.....|
+-----------------------+-----------+--------------------+If you would like to know more about “Hash tables” I recommend referring to the article below
Summary:
- { key, value } table search using a hash function is faster and uses less disk space.
- A cryptographic hash function is a particular type of hash function.
- Ethereum currently implements the “Keccak” Cryptographic hash function.
- Keccak is a sponge-like function with Absorb and Release features.
- Ethereum maintains a database of keys and values.
Onto:
In the next chapter, we will go in-depth about Ethereum blocks, till then learn on.
