Adding Skein hash to the mix

[DonaldTsang]

Skein is created by Bruce Schneier, one of the leader in cryptography.
It is as fast as BLAKE, faster than all other SHA3 finalists and SHA2.

Skein hashes can have arbitrary lengths up to 1024 bits.
A longer hash means files are less likely to have hash collisions.
They can also produce shorter hashes for higher speed.

Using b3xx code for 256-XXX, 512-XXX and 1024-XXX skein hashes would be good.
There are only 224 hashes in total (assuming we exclude hashes not multiple of 8).

References:
http://www.skein-hash.info/sites/default/files/skein1.3.pdf
www.skein-hash.info/sites/default/files/NIST_CD_102610.zip

Python implementation: https://pythonhosted.org/pyskein
Java, C and Go: https://github.com/wernerd/Skein3Fish

multiformats/multihash#83
multiformats/go-multihash#52
multiformats/js-multihash#34

[Kubuxu]

@diasdavid LGTY, LGTM.

[DonaldTsang]

@Kubuxu Thanks.

[Kubuxu]

@whyrusleeping @lgierth can you tick off on that please?

[daviddias]

Overall LGTM.

My sentiment is that we have to find a way to keep this table under control, it is getting massive fast

[DonaldTsang]

@daviddias I did my own research into what Hashes are useful.
Out of all the hashes in SHA3 second and third round, only a few matters
(I am not saying that all of them belong in multi-codec but that they have interesting properties)

• BLAKE and BLAKE2 (built to be faster than SHA512 and SHA256)
• SHA3, SHAKE, KangarooTwelve and M14 (built to be faster than BLAKE2)
• Skein (at least faster than SHA2, has 1024-bit options)
• Blue Midnight Wish (round 2, near miss for finalist, faster than SHA1)
• ECHO (round2, faster than SHA1, uses AES instructions for speedup)
• SHAVite3 (round2, faster than SHA1, uses AES instructions for speedup)
• SHABAL (round2, faster than SHA512 and SHA256, uses AES instructions for speedup)
• Cubehash 8/32 (modified, faster than SHA1, slightly insecure, easy to write)

To add these in Go We have https://github.com/bitbandi/go-x11 or https://github.com/samli88/go-x11-hash
To add these in JS We have https://github.com/dashpay/x11-hash-js or https://github.com/AXErunners/x11-hash-js
(They only have the 512 bit version but 256 bit versions can be modified from that)

[DonaldTsang]

quartile	median	quartile	hash	length	type
2.20	2.21	2.23	k12	any	Post-SHA3
2.54	2.55	2.57	md4	128	legacy
2.53	2.58	2.60	bmw512	512	<= This
2.71	2.72	2.75	echo256	256	<= This
2.91	2.92	2.93	blake2b	512	Post-SHA3
2.95	2.98	3.00	shavite3512	512	<= This
3.01	3.06	3.20	echosp256	256	<= This
3.04	3.06	3.09	sha1	160	legacy
3.34	3.35	3.37	shavite3256	256	<= This
3.52	3.54	3.55	cubehash832	512	<= This
3.98	4.02	4.05	keccakc256treed2	256	tree-SHA3
3.35	4.05	4.92	bmw256	256	<= This
4.04	4.26	4.70	blake2s	256	Post-SHA3
4.31	4.33	4.35	md5	128	legacy
4.39	4.45	4.49	sha384	384	legacy
4.43	4.47	4.51	shabal512	512	<= This
4.20	4.48	4.95	sha512	512	legacy
4.45	4.48	4.52	skein512512	512	Skein
4.41	4.48	4.63	blake512	512	BLAKE
4.47	4.51	4.54	skein512256	256	Skein
4.49	4.52	4.57	shake128	any	SHA3+
4.49	4.57	4.70	echosp512	512	<= This
4.64	4.67	4.72	blake64	512	old-BLAKE
4.65	4.68	4.70	shabal256	256	<= This
4.89	4.93	4.98	keccakc512treed2	512	tree-SHA3
4.99	5.03	5.07	bblake256	256	TwinBLAKE
5.02	5.05	5.08	bash256	256	mystery
5.33	5.35	5.38	blake32	256	old-BLAKE
5.65	5.68	5.71	skein10241024	1024	Skein
5.55	5.78	6.53	sha3224	224	SHA3
5.63	5.95	6.57	blake256	256	BLAKE
5.91	6.06	6.12	shake256	any	SHA3+
5.88	6.08	6.12	sha3256	256	SHA3
5.61	6.12	6.59	keccakc256	256	old-SHA3
6.20	6.53	7.09	bash384	384	mystery
6.61	6.65	6.69	sha256	256	legacy
6.64	6.67	6.72	sha224	224	legacy