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Pigeonhole principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeonhole_principle

I think you've correctly picked up on the difference between "uniquely" and "infeasable".

It's not possible to use a hash function to give every possible input a unique reference. But a cryptographic hash function aims to make the inputs to "hash collisions" be very different. So, for real world files the hash is unique, because the file that would produce a hash collision would be malformed and useless.

In general when you hash a message you don't want an attacker to make subtle changes and get the same hash.

"Here is my electronic payment for £100" should never have the same hash as "Here is my electronic payment for £10,000. Nice to meet you on the weekend".




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