At 7:53 PM +0200 8/21/01, Werner Koch wrote:
> BTW: Why was Radix-64 developed; and what are the problems of having
ciphertext
output as a hexadecimal file?
Because it produces only an 33% overhead compared to the 100% overhead
of plain hexdigits.
We need to save some bandwidth so that we can use more funny mail
headers :-)
In addition to being more compact than hex digits, it uses a
character symbol set that is considered "safe" across all systems. It
wouldn't do if the encoding method included characters that aren't
representable or whose numeric equivalent is ambiguous.
Bandwidth does matter -- even when the email headers are longer than
the message....which is goofy, I know...which is why a message saying
only "ok" or "thanks" may be polite, but not necessarily the most
efficient thing to do.
best,
--
john noerenberg
jwn2(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com
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If you don't even own your own name, how can you have
a sense of self-worth?
-- Simson Garfinkel, "Database Nation", 2000
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