HMAC

/ˈeɪtʃ-ˌmæk/

n. “Authenticate it, don’t just trust it.”

HMAC, or Hash-based Message Authentication Code, is a cryptographic construction that combines a secret key with a hash function, such as SHA256 or SHA512, to provide both message integrity and authentication. Unlike simple hashes, which only verify that data hasn’t changed, HMAC ensures that the message came from someone who knows the secret key, effectively adding a layer of trust on top of data verification.

SHA1

/ˌes-eɪtʃ-ˈwʌn/

n. “Good enough… until it wasn’t.”

SHA1 is a cryptographic hash function born in an era when the internet still believed in handshakes, trust, and the idea that computational limits would politely remain limits. Designed by the NSA and standardized in the mid-1990s, SHA1 takes arbitrary input and produces a 160-bit fingerprint — a fixed-length digest meant to uniquely represent data, documents, passwords, or entire software releases.

SHA256

/ˌes-eɪtʃ-eɪ-ˈtuː-fɪfti-sɪks/

n. “Proves what you have… and that it hasn’t been quietly touched since.”

SHA256 is a modern cryptographic hashing algorithm designed for a world that learned its lessons the hard way. Where MD5 trusted too easily and paid for it later, SHA256  assumes the environment is hostile, the inputs are adversarial, and someone is always trying to cheat the math.

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