Hash function that produces short hashes?

Question

Is there a way of encryption that can take a string of any length and produce a sub-10-character hash? I want to produce reasonably unique ID\'s but based on message content

Answer 1

You could use an existing hash algorithm that produces something short, like MD5 (128 bits) or SHA1 (160). Then you can shorten that further by XORing sections of the digest with other sections. This will increase the chance of collisions, but not as bad as simply truncating the digest.

Also, you could include the length of the original data as part of the result to make it more unique. For example, XORing the first half of an MD5 digest with the second half would result in 64 bits. Add 32 bits for the length of the data (or lower if you know that length will always fit into fewer bits). That would result in a 96-bit (12-byte) result that you could then turn into a 24-character hex string. Alternately, you could use base 64 encoding to make it even shorter.