On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 23:13:47 +0100, Kurt Roeckx <Q@ping.be> wrote:
>
> So a figerprint and all the hash/digest function have no purpose
> at all?
The purpose of both is to reduce the amount of material in a way that
makes it hard to generate some other material that would result in the
same hash or fingerprint. This allows you to reduce the cost of transmitting
the data or making computations (in particular signing) on the data.