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I think that:

  • Tags and should be merged to . In my opinion having special tag for SHA-256 doesn't actually make sense.

  • should be renamed to as we don't curretly have questions talking about SHA as about family of hashing algorithms. All of them refer to specific versions.

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Actually, since this is a security site, and I expect almost any algorithm-specific question to be on the Cryptography site instead of here, I personally think we shouldn't even have any algorithm-specific tags, at all.

Rather, I would instead of both and , I would retag them both as ; I would do the same for and . Same with .

I would do the same for encryption algorithms, too - e.g. instead of and simply have , or possibly .

My point is, most of those questions either: (a) should be asked on crypto, because it is about the algorithm details; or (b) mostly irrelevant which algorithm is used, from a security management point of view; or (c) apply to a range of algorithms, or the specific algorithm is not known in the question (e.g. which algorithm to use in a specific situation).

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    Algorthmic tags may exist as there are questions about how to correctly use those algorithms. Usage of crypto is a topic of security.SE. Crypto internals is a topic of crypto.SE
    – Andrei Botalov
    Oct 5, 2012 at 15:24
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    I do understand where AviD is coming from. Looking through the various questions tagged as sha or sha256, they all can fit into the hash tag.
    – user10211
    Oct 6, 2012 at 15:03
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    And considering the low volume of questions tagged with that compared to the generic hash tag, AviD's solution makes sense.
    – user10211
    Oct 6, 2012 at 15:05
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    @AndreyBotalov "Usage of crypto" would most often be irrelevant of the algorithm. "When should I use symmetric encryption", it doesnt matter if you're using AES or DES; "How can I ensure my signature is valid for the correct public key" is irrelevant of RSA, DSA, or anything else; "How should we do key management" only matters if it is symmetric or asymmetric. And so on.
    – AviD Mod
    Oct 8, 2012 at 21:31
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    Think of it this way: Crypto is a tool. In a professional's toolbox, there are many similar tools; if you want to ask specifics about the tools, there is a site for that. Just because we have many different heads for our drill, we dont need to tag eighth-inch-drillbit separately from three-and-half-inch-drillbit; or flathead-screwdriver from philipshead-screwdriver - using the tools would be the same either way.
    – AviD Mod
    Oct 8, 2012 at 21:36
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    +1 on this. Hash is the best option.
    – Polynomial
    Oct 11, 2012 at 21:25

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