If H produces a hash result N bits long, then to find an s’ where H(s’) = H(s) for a specific given s, the amount of computation required is O(2**n); i.e., it is necessary to try on the order of 2 to the power n values of s’ before finding a collision. However, to simply find any pair of values s and s’ that collide, the amount of computation required is only O(2**(n/2)); i.e., after computing H(s) for 2 to the power n/2 randomly chosen values of s, the probability is greater than 1/2 that two of those values have the same hash result. (See: birthday attack.)