[p2p-hackers] References for using hashes as unique identifiers?

[Gregory P. Smith]

On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 07:11:21AM -0500, Zooko O'Whielacronx wrote:
> 
> Once upon a time there was a discussion about the risk of hash collision in Mojo 
> Nation on the Mojo Nation devel mailing list.  Hal Finney said that such extreme 
> probabilities were beyond our ability to engineer.  I agreed and said that there 
> was a higher chance that our hash-collision-handling code would be buggy than 
> that there would be a hash collision.
> 
> Greg Smith wasn't satisfied with this and went ahead and implemented a simple 
> routine to detect and clean up after a hash collision.  Shortly thereafter we 
> discovered that there was a sporadic bug in this routine which caused it to 
> trigger sometimes even in the absence of a collision.  Rather than fixing the 
> bug, Greg removed the routine.

hehe.  i don't remember doing that so i'll have to take your word for it. :)