Hashing is primarily used to generate unique identifiers for data items, enabling efficient searching, indexing, and comparison.

SHA-256 is commonly employed for password storage due to its strong cryptographic properties and resistance to collision attacks.

A collision occurs when two distinct inputs generate the same hash value, leading to potential security vulnerabilities.

SHA-256 is extensively used in blockchain technology due to its ability to generate secure and tamper-proof hashes for blocks, ensuring the integrity of the blockchain.

Hash tables excel in providing constant-time lookup and retrieval operations, making them highly efficient for searching large datasets.

Consistent hashing is widely used in distributed systems to distribute data across multiple nodes in a consistent and predictable manner, ensuring even load distribution.

Salting is a technique used in password hashing to prevent precomputed attacks like rainbow tables by adding a random value to the password before hashing, making it more difficult to crack.

SHA-256 is commonly used for generating message digests due to its strong cryptographic properties and resistance to collision attacks, making it suitable for ensuring data integrity and authenticity.

Linear probing suffers from increased collision probability as it linearly searches for an empty slot to insert a new element, leading to potential clustering and reduced search efficiency.

SHA-512 is widely used for generating cryptographic hashes due to its high level of security and resistance to collision attacks, making it suitable for applications requiring strong cryptographic protection.

The primary purpose of a hash function in a hash table is to distribute data items evenly across the table, reducing collisions and improving search efficiency.

Chaining is a widely used technique for resolving collisions in hash tables by creating linked lists for each hash table slot, allowing multiple elements to occupy the same slot.

Double hashing reduces collision probability by using a secondary hash function to determine the next slot to probe in case of a collision, distributing elements more evenly across the hash table.

SHA-256 is commonly used for generating fingerprints for files due to its strong cryptographic properties and resistance to collision attacks, making it suitable for verifying file integrity and detecting file tampering.