To calculate hash of some data, you should first construct a hash object by calling the appropriate constructor function (blake2b() or blake2s()), then update it with the data by calling update() on the object, and, finally, get the digest out of the object by calling digest() (or hexdigest() for hex-encoded string).
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> h = blake2b()
>>> h.update(b'Hello world')
>>> h.hexdigest()
'6ff843ba685842aa82031d3f53c48b66326df7639a63d128974c5c14f31a0f33343a8c65551134ed1ae0f2b0dd2bb495dc81039e3eeb0aa1bb0388bbeac29183'
As a shortcut, you can pass the first chunk of data to update directly to the constructor as the first argument (or as data keyword argument):
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> blake2b(b'Hello world').hexdigest()
'6ff843ba685842aa82031d3f53c48b66326df7639a63d128974c5c14f31a0f33343a8c65551134ed1ae0f2b0dd2bb495dc81039e3eeb0aa1bb0388bbeac29183'
You can call hash.update() as many times as you need to iteratively update the hash:
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> items = [b'Hello', b' ', b'world']
>>> h = blake2b()
>>> for item in items:
... h.update(item)
>>> h.hexdigest()
'6ff843ba685842aa82031d3f53c48b66326df7639a63d128974c5c14f31a0f33343a8c65551134ed1ae0f2b0dd2bb495dc81039e3eeb0aa1bb0388bbeac29183'
BLAKE2 has configurable size of digests up to 64 bytes for BLAKE2b and up to 32 bytes for BLAKE2s. For example, to replace SHA-1 with BLAKE2b without changing the size of output, we can tell BLAKE2b to produce 20-byte digests:
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> h = blake2b(digest_size=20)
>>> h.update(b'Replacing SHA1 with the more secure function')
>>> h.hexdigest()
'd24f26cf8de66472d58d4e1b1774b4c9158b1f4c'
>>> h.digest_size
20
>>> len(h.digest())
20
Hash objects with different digest sizes have completely different outputs (shorter hashes are not prefixes of longer hashes); BLAKE2b and BLAKE2s produce different outputs even if the output length is the same:
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b, blake2s
>>> blake2b(digest_size=10).hexdigest()
'6fa1d8fcfd719046d762'
>>> blake2b(digest_size=11).hexdigest()
'eb6ec15daf9546254f0809'
>>> blake2s(digest_size=10).hexdigest()
'1bf21a98c78a1c376ae9'
>>> blake2s(digest_size=11).hexdigest()
'567004bf96e4a25773ebf4'
Keyed hashing can be used for authentication as a faster and simpler replacement for Hash-based message authentication code (HMAC). BLAKE2 can be securely used in prefix-MAC mode thanks to the indifferentiability property inherited from BLAKE.
This example shows how to get a (hex-encoded) 128-bit authentication code for message b'message data' with key b'pseudorandom key':
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> h = blake2b(key=b'pseudorandom key', digest_size=16)
>>> h.update(b'message data')
>>> h.hexdigest()
'3d363ff7401e02026f4a4687d4863ced'
As a practical example, a web application can symmetrically sign cookies sent to users and later verify them to make sure they weren’t tampered with:
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>>
>>> SECRET_KEY = b'pseudorandomly generated server secret key'
>>> AUTH_SIZE = 16
>>>
>>> def sign(cookie):
... h = blake2b(data=cookie, digest_size=AUTH_SIZE, key=SECRET_KEY)
... return h.hexdigest()
>>>
>>> def verify(cookie, sig):
... good_sig = sign(cookie)
... if len(sig) != len(good_sig):
... return False
... # Use constant-time comparison to avoid timing attacks.
... result = 0
... for x, y in zip(sig, good_sig):
... result |= ord(x) ^ ord(y)
... return result == 0
>>>
>>> cookie = b'user:vatrogasac'
>>> sig = sign(cookie)
>>> print("{0},{1}".format(cookie.decode('utf-8'), sig))
user:vatrogasac,349cf904533767ed2d755279a8df84d0
>>> verify(cookie, sig)
True
>>> verify(b'user:policajac', sig)
False
>>> verify(cookie, '0102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f00')
False
Even though there’s a native keyed hashing mode, BLAKE2 can, of course, be used in HMAC construction with hmac module from the standard library:
>>> import hmac, pyblake2
>>> m = hmac.new(b'secret key', digestmod=pyblake2.blake2s)
>>> m.update(b'message')
>>> m.hexdigest()
'e3c8102868d28b5ff85fc35dda07329970d1a01e273c37481326fe0c861c8142'
By setting salt parameter users can introduce randomization to the hash function. Randomized hashing is useful for protecting against collision attacks on the hash function used in digital signatures.
Randomized hashing is designed for situations where one party, the message preparer, generates all or part of a message to be signed by a second party, the message signer. If the message preparer is able to find cryptographic hash function collisions (i.e., two messages producing the same hash value), then she might prepare meaningful versions of the message that would produce the same hash value and digital signature, but with different results (e.g., transferring $1,000,000 to an account, rather than $10). Cryptographic hash functions have been designed with collision resistance as a major goal, but the current concentration on attacking cryptographic hash functions may result in a given cryptographic hash function providing less collision resistance than expected. Randomized hashing offers the signer additional protection by reducing the likelihood that a preparer can generate two or more messages that ultimately yield the same hash value during the digital signature generation process – even if it is practical to find collisions for the hash function. However, the use of randomized hashing may reduce the amount of security provided by a digital signature when all portions of the message are prepared by the signer.
(NIST SP-800-106 “Randomized Hashing for Digital Signatures”)
In BLAKE2 the salt is processed as a one-time input to the hash function during initialization, rather than as an input to each compression function.
Warning
Salted hashing (or just hashing) with BLAKE2 or any other general-purpose cryptographic hash function, such as SHA-256, is not suitable for hashing passwords. See BLAKE2 FAQ for more information.
>>> import os
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b, BLAKE2B_SALT_SIZE
>>> msg = b'some message'
>>> # Calculate the first hash with a random salt.
>>> salt1 = os.urandom(BLAKE2B_SALT_SIZE)
>>> h1 = blake2b(salt=salt1)
>>> h1.update(msg)
>>> # Calculate the second hash with a different random salt.
>>> salt2 = os.urandom(BLAKE2B_SALT_SIZE)
>>> h2 = blake2b(salt=salt2)
>>> h2.update(msg)
>>> # The digests are different.
>>> h1.digest() != h2.digest()
True
Sometimes it is useful to force hash function to produce different digests for the same input for different purposes. Quoting the authors of the Skein hash function:
We recommend that all application designers seriously consider doing this; we have seen many protocols where a hash that is computed in one part of the protocol can be used in an entirely different part because two hash computations were done on similar or related data, and the attacker can force the application to make the hash inputs the same. Personalizing each hash function used in the protocol summarily stops this type of attack.
(The Skein Hash Function Family, p. 21)
BLAKE2 can be personalized by passing bytes to the person argument:
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>> FILES_HASH_PERSON = b'MyApp Files Hash'
>>> BLOCK_HASH_PERSON = b'MyApp Block Hash'
>>> h = blake2b(digest_size=32, person=FILES_HASH_PERSON)
>>> h.update(b'the same content')
>>> h.hexdigest()
'20d9cd024d4fb086aae819a1432dd2466de12947831b75c5a30cf2676095d3b4'
>>> h = blake2b(digest_size=32, person=BLOCK_HASH_PERSON)
>>> h.update(b'the same content')
>>> h.hexdigest()
'cf68fb5761b9c44e7878bfb2c4c9aea52264a80b75005e65619778de59f383a3'
Personalization together with the keyed mode can also be used to derive different keys from a single one.
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2s
>>> from base64 import b64decode, b64encode
>>> orig_key = b64decode(b'Rm5EPJai72qcK3RGBpW3vPNfZy5OZothY+kHY6h21KM=')
>>> enc_key = blake2s(key=orig_key, person=b'kEncrypt').digest()
>>> mac_key = blake2s(key=orig_key, person=b'kMAC').digest()
>>> print(b64encode(enc_key).decode('utf-8'))
rbPb15S/Z9t+agffno5wuhB77VbRi6F9Iv2qIxU7WHw=
>>> print(b64encode(mac_key).decode('utf-8'))
G9GtHFE1YluXY1zWPlYk1e/nWfu0WSEb0KRcjhDeP/o=
Here’s an example of hashing a minimal tree with two leaf nodes:
10
/ \
00 01
The example uses 64-byte internal digests, and returns the 32-byte final digest.
>>> from pyblake2 import blake2b
>>>
>>> FANOUT = 2
>>> DEPTH = 2
>>> LEAF_SIZE = 4096
>>> INNER_SIZE = 64
>>>
>>> buf = bytearray(6000)
>>>
>>> # Left leaf
... h00 = blake2b(buf[0:LEAF_SIZE], fanout=FANOUT, depth=DEPTH,
... leaf_size=LEAF_SIZE, inner_size=INNER_SIZE,
... node_offset=0, node_depth=0, last_node=False)
>>> # Right leaf
... h01 = blake2b(buf[LEAF_SIZE:], fanout=FANOUT, depth=DEPTH,
... leaf_size=LEAF_SIZE, inner_size=INNER_SIZE,
... node_offset=1, node_depth=0, last_node=True)
>>> # Root node
... h10 = blake2b(digest_size=32, fanout=FANOUT, depth=DEPTH,
... leaf_size=LEAF_SIZE, inner_size=INNER_SIZE,
... node_offset=0, node_depth=1, last_node=True)
>>> h10.update(h00.digest())
>>> h10.update(h01.digest())
>>> h10.hexdigest()
'3ad2a9b37c6070e374c7a8c508fe20ca86b6ed54e286e93a0318e95e881db5aa'