Marty wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2003 at 7:46am:

Skeptic, It's funny that the topic has wandered off into crypto. Just a few days ago I posted a program to codeproject demonstrating how simple it is to force a specific CRC in a file. One often sees it stated that CRC's shouldn't be used for message digest apps but a lot of people seem to think they are candidates and a lot of crypto tyros fall in love with them. It's also applicable to error correcting codes, an area I've been intrigued by for decades. -Marty

When I interviewed at NSA for an analyst position (man, I really would have liked working there), I had a very interesting conversation regarding encryption.  Suffice it to say that I'm convinced there are serious limits to what that organization can do, as well as impressive capabilities.  They have a tough mission.

My exposure to encryption has been limited to a good book by Schneier (Applied Cryptography).  But even I know that you want to use a bona-fide one-way hash for digest purposes :)

Skeptic