I would like to know whether it is possible to determine whether a value of for example 256 bit length is a SHA-256
hash or a random, equally distributed value. Is there any research related to common hash functions? Can this property be derived from the avalanche effect?
I would like to know because I would like to include plain text hash values in a steganographic medium, where the stegosystem bases on white noise to be turned into sentences, with number of words per sentences, that have the same distribution of length as usual in this language. Encryption of the hash values is not possible, because at that point of the designed protocol, no key exchange has been performed, yet.
Thank you for all answers or questions related to this problem.