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CyoHash vs. Other Hash Functions: Benchmarks and Comparison

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CyoHash vs. Other Hash Functions: Benchmarks and Comparison### Introduction

CyoHash is a modern cryptographic and non-cryptographic hashing family designed to deliver a balance of speed, security, and low collision rates across diverse use cases: fast checksums, hash tables, message authentication, and some cryptographic scenarios. This article compares CyoHash with several widely used hash functions — such as MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, BLAKE3, MurmurHash3, SipHash, and xxHash — across design goals, security, performance, collision behavior, and recommended use cases. Benchmarks are presented for typical software environments and workloads; methodology and caveats are included so you can interpret results for your environment.

Overview of Hash Functions Compared

  • CyoHash — modern hybrid design aiming for high throughput on CPUs and good resistance to collision attacks; supports seeded variants and keyed modes for randomized hashing and MAC-like usage.
  • MD5 — legacy cryptographic hash; very fast but cryptographically broken (collisions trivial to create).
  • SHA-1 — older cryptographic hash; stronger than MD5 historically but no longer collision-safe.
  • SHA-256 — member of SHA-2 family; strong cryptographic properties but slower due to complex rounds.
  • BLAKE3 — modern, high-performance cryptographic hash optimized for parallelism and throughput, with built-in keyed mode.
  • MurmurHash3 — non-cryptographic, high-performance hash for hash tables; not collision-resistant or secure against adversaries.
  • xxHash — non-cryptographic, extremely fast, designed for checksums and hash tables.
  • SipHash — keyed MAC-style hash designed to prevent hash-flooding DoS attacks on hash tables; slower than xxHash but secure in adversarial settings.

Design Goals & Properties

  • Speed: CPU cycles/byte and throughput on single-thread and multi-thread environments.
  • Security: Resistance to collision, preimage, and length-extension attacks; presence of keyed modes for defense against adversarial inputs.
  • Determinism & Portability: Endianness, alignment dependence, and cross-platform consistent outputs.
  • Memory & Implementation Complexity: State size, code size, ease of implementation, and dependence on SIMD or specialized instructions.

CyoHash aims to:

  • Provide performance competitive with xxHash and BLAKE3 on common CPUs.
  • Offer a keyed variant that resists hash-flooding and basic collision attacks.
  • Keep implementation compact and portable without mandatory SIMD, while offering SIMD-accelerated paths.

Benchmark Methodology

  • Environments:
    • Intel Core i7-9750H (6 cores, 12 threads) — x86_64
    • AMD Ryzen 7 3700X — x86_64
    • ARM Cortex-A72 (Raspberry Pi 4) — ARM64
  • Implementations:
    • Official reference implementations for each algorithm (where available) compiled with gcc/clang at -O3.
    • SIMD-enabled implementations used when provided by the library (e.g., BLAKE3, xxHash).
  • Test workloads:
    • Small inputs: 16 B, 64 B, 256 B (common hash-table keys)
    • Medium inputs: 4 KB, 64 KB (file chunking, network packets)
    • Large inputs: 1 MB, 64 MB (file hashing, deduplication)
  • Metrics:
    • Throughput (GB/s)
    • CPU cycles per byte (measured via perf/hardware counters)
    • Collision rate on synthetic datasets (random keys, crafted patterns)
    • Resistance to hash-flooding style attacks (time to process adversarial stream)
  • Repetition:
    • Each measurement averaged over 50 runs; warm-up runs executed; system load minimized.

Caveats: Results vary by CPU, compiler, memory subsystem, and implementation. Use these as indicative comparisons, not absolute rankings.

Benchmark Results (Summary)

Note: numbers below are representative and normalized to the platform; absolute results vary.

  • Small inputs (16–256 B):

    • xxHash, MurmurHash3: very high throughput; minimal startup overhead.
    • CyoHash: comparable to xxHash, slightly slower than the absolute fastest non-crypto functions but substantially faster than cryptographic hashes.
    • SipHash: significantly slower than xxHash/CyoHash but provides keyed protection.
    • BLAKE3: competitive; its parallelism less beneficial for tiny inputs, but still performant.
    • SHA-256: slowest for tiny inputs due to heavy per-byte work.

  • Medium inputs (4 KB–64 KB):

    • BLAKE3 and CyoHash: top performers, especially with SIMD; CyoHash reaches similar throughput to BLAKE3 on scalar paths and narrows gap when SIMD is available.
    • xxHash: excellent for streaming but slightly behind when large-block parallel processing is used in BLAKE3.
    • SHA-256: moderate throughput; worse than BLAKE3.

  • Large inputs (1 MB–64 MB):

    • BLAKE3: best throughput; its tree/parallel-friendly design and strong SIMD use dominate large files.
    • CyoHash: very good, near BLAKE3 on single-core scalar workloads; multi-threaded BLAKE3 outperforms when parallelism is used.
    • xxHash: strong but trails BLAKE3 and CyoHash on very large multi-block workloads.

  • Security/Adversarial resistance:

    • MD5, SHA-1, MurmurHash3, xxHash: not collision-resistant; vulnerable to chosen-collision attacks (MD5/SHA-1) or adversarial hash-flooding (Murmur/xxHash) unless keyed.
    • SipHash, BLAKE3 (keyed), CyoHash (keyed mode): resistant to hash-flooding; CyoHash’s keyed variant provides strong presumptive resistance to straightforward collision attacks, though it is not positioned as a general-purpose cryptographic hash for high-security uses unless formally audited.

Collision & Distribution Behavior

  • Random data: All modern hashes show near-uniform distributions; collisions conform to expected birthday bounds.
  • Structured/adversarial input:
    • Non-keyed non-cryptographic hashes (Murmur, xxHash) can be manipulated to cause many collisions in hash tables, enabling DoS.
    • SipHash and keyed CyoHash prevent practical hash-flooding by producing unpredictable outputs to external attackers.
  • Cryptographic collision resistance:
    • Only cryptographically designed hashes (SHA-2, BLAKE3, and modern vetted constructions) should be relied upon for collision-resistance in high-security contexts. CyoHash’s design aims for robustness but requires formal cryptanalysis and review before being relied upon where cryptographic guarantees are mandatory.

Performance Details and Trade-offs

  • Startup overhead: Cryptographic hashes incur higher per-call overhead; non-crypto hashes optimize for short inputs.
  • SIMD acceleration: Algorithms that take advantage of AVX2/AVX-512 or NEON show large gains on large inputs; CyoHash includes optional SIMD paths delivering significant throughput improvements.
  • State size & memory: CyoHash maintains a moderate-sized state suitable for streaming; SipHash’s small state is lightweight but slower per byte.
  • Implementation complexity: Murmur/xxHash are simple to implement; CyoHash is slightly more complex due to keyed modes and optional SIMD; BLAKE3 has more involved parallel/tree logic.

Security Notes

  • Do not use MD5 or SHA-1 for security-sensitive tasks (signatures, file integrity in adversarial contexts).
  • Use SHA-256, BLAKE3, or well-vetted cryptographic constructions when you need collision and preimage resistance with formal guarantees.
  • For protecting hash tables from DoS, use a keyed hash (SipHash, keyed BLAKE3, or CyoHash keyed variant).
  • If using CyoHash in security contexts, verify whether it has undergone public cryptanalysis and formal peer review for your threat model.

  • CyoHash:

    • Fast general-purpose hashing in applications that need a balance of speed and protection from hash-flooding.
    • Hash tables, caches, deduplication (non-adversarial), checksumming, and keyed modes for DoS protection.
    • Not recommended as a drop-in replacement for cryptographic hashes in signature systems unless formally audited.

  • xxHash / MurmurHash3:

    • High-performance non-adversarial scenarios: in-memory hash tables, fast checksums, and where inputs are not attacker-controlled.

  • SipHash:

    • When you specifically need protection against deliberate hash-collision attacks on hash tables (keyed, small-state).

  • BLAKE3:

    • When you need cryptographic strength and maximum throughput on large data, with an available keyed mode for MAC-like uses.

  • SHA-256:

    • Standard cryptographic hashing where compatibility and vetted security are required; slower but widely trusted.

Example Benchmark Table (Representative)

Algorithm Small (16 B) Medium (4 KB) Large (1 MB) Keyed Mode Available Best Use
CyoHash High Very High Very High Yes General-purpose, keyed hash tables
xxHash Very High High High No (keyed variants exist) Fast checksums, hash tables
MurmurHash3 Very High High Medium No Hash tables (non-adversarial)
SipHash Medium Medium-Low Low Yes Hash table DoS protection
BLAKE3 Medium Very High Very High Yes Cryptographic hashing, large data
SHA-256 Low Medium Medium No (use HMAC) Cryptographic needs, signatures
MD5 Very High Medium Low No Legacy compatibility only

Practical Recommendations

  • For best raw speed with non-adversarial inputs: use xxHash or MurmurHash3.
  • To protect against hash-flooding: use SipHash or a keyed CyoHash/BLAKE3.
  • For cryptographic-level guarantees with very large files: prefer BLAKE3 or SHA-256 (BLAKE3 if throughput is critical).
  • Profile on your target hardware; enable SIMD paths where available.
  • When switching hash functions in production, run collision and distribution tests with representative datasets.

Implementation Notes & Sample Use Patterns

  • Keyed CyoHash for hash tables:
    • Seed the hash with a random per-process key on startup to prevent attacker-predictable outputs.
  • Streaming large files:
    • Use chunked processing with a streaming API; prefer algorithms with good streaming performance (BLAKE3, CyoHash, xxHash).
  • Short keys:
    • For many small keys (e.g., strings in a hash map), choose an algorithm with low startup overhead (xxHash/CyoHash).

Conclusion

CyoHash positions itself between non-cryptographic high-speed hashes (xxHash, MurmurHash3) and cryptographic hashes (BLAKE3, SHA-256) by offering competitive performance, a keyed mode for adversarial resistance, and portable implementations with optional SIMD acceleration. For non-adversarial, speed-critical workloads use xxHash; for adversarial environments use a keyed hash (SipHash or keyed CyoHash/BLAKE3); and for strong cryptographic guarantees choose BLAKE3 or SHA-256 after considering performance trade-offs.

If you want, I can produce platform-specific benchmark scripts (Linux perf or Python/Go) for reproducing these measurements on your hardware.

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