But contests like NIST's don't come along everyday, and Burr says he's impressed by the submissions. Many of them, including Rivest's MD6 submission, take advantage of new multi-processor computers that are now commonly available and could be faster than today's algorithms.

"It's just amazing the amount of work that's gone into some of these proposals," Burr said.

"Some of them look fantastic, some of them look like maybe they were done by a 13-year-old kid, and there's everything in between."