http://gcn.com/articles/2010/01/05/nist-sha3-competiton-010510.aspx 

By William Jackson
GCN.com
Jan 05, 2010

The competition to select the new Secure Hash Algorithm standard for 
government has moved into the second round. The National Institute of 
Standards and Technology has winnowed the 64 algorithims submitted down 
to 14 semifinalists.

Of the 64 algorithms submitted in 2008, 51 met minimum criteria for 
acceptance in the competition. The cryptographic community spent the 
next year hammering at the candidates, looking for flaws and weaknesses.

"We were pleased by the amount and quality of the cryptanalysis we 
received on the first round candidates, and more than a little amazed by 
the ingenuity of some of the attacks," said Bill Burr, manager of NIST's 
Security Technology Group, in announcing the initial narrowing of the 
field in July.

Submitters of algorithms that made it through the first round of 
competition had until September to tweak the specifications or source 
code, and the final list of second round contenders was recently 
announced. The 14 second-round candidates are called BLAKE, BLUE 
MIDNIGHT WISH, CubeHash, ECHO, Fugue, Grstl, Hamsi, JH, Keccak, Luffa, 
Shabal, SHAvite-3, SIMD, and Skein. Candidate algorithms are available 
online at www.nist.gov/hash-competition 

[...]


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