Understanding Hashing Techniques

What is the primary purpose of hashing in computer science?

• To encrypt data for secure transmission

• To map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values

• To compress data for storage efficiency

• To sort data in ascending order

Which of the following is a common use of hashing?

• Data compression

• Data encryption

• Data indexing

• Data sorting

Which of the following is a characteristic of a good hash function?

• It produces the same hash value for different inputs

• It is easy to reverse-engineer

• It distributes hash values uniformly

• It is slow to compute

What is a hash collision?

• When two different inputs produce the same hash value

• When a hash function fails to produce a hash value

• When a hash value is too large to store

• When a hash function is too slow

Which of the following is a widely used cryptographic hash function?

• SHA-256

• MD5

• AES

• RSA

In which scenario is hashing particularly useful?

• When you need to encrypt sensitive data

• When you need to quickly compare large datasets

• When you need to compress files for storage

• When you need to sort a list of numbers

What is the output size of a SHA-256 hash function?

• 128 bits

• 160 bits

• 256 bits

• 512 bits

Which of the following is NOT a property of a cryptographic hash function?

• Pre-image resistance

• Collision resistance

• Deterministic output

• Reversible computation

What is the main difference between hashing and encryption?

• Hashing is reversible, encryption is not

• Hashing is used for data integrity, encryption is used for data confidentiality

• Hashing requires a key, encryption does not

• Hashing is slower than encryption

Which of the following best describes a hash table?

• A data structure that stores data in a sorted order

• A data structure that maps keys to values using a hash function

• A data structure that compresses data for efficient storage

• A data structure that encrypts data for secure access