The document discusses hash functions and their properties. It defines a hash function as providing a unique fingerprint of a message in the form of a message digest. The key properties are that it is fast to compute the digest, one-way (cannot find original message from digest), and collision-free (cannot find two messages with the same digest). It then describes an easy hash algorithm that breaks messages into blocks and XORs them before discussing the iterative SHA-1 algorithm in more detail.