Coding Theory and Hash Function Design A Case Study: The Lane Hash Function

Abstract. We illustrate how coding theory was applied in the design of the cryp-tographic hash function LANE [8]. The generic structure of the LANE compression function could potentially be vulnerable to a class of meet-in-the-middle attacks. While difficult to avoid at first sight, restating the problem in the domain of error correcting codes naturally leads to a simple and elegant solution. This ensures that these attacks do not apply to LANE