ietf-822
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Re: base64 and checksums

1991-10-30 18:33:44
Wrong!  There is a difference you're over-looking.  A person can look at
pseudo-ascii with a text editor and either fix it or make sense of it,
if there's a problem.  A person can not do this with a binary stream.

Huh? What on earth does this have to do with anything?

We're talking about detecting errors here, not correcting them.

And even so, please explain how this distinguishes between binary and
base64 encodings. Can you make sense of either of them in all cases? I
seriously doubt it.

Bottom line: for 7bit and quoted-printable, checksums don't buy you
much.  For base64. because it is largely used to encode binary stuff.

I disagree totally. For example, suppose I send PostScript encoded in
quoted-printable (an excellent encoding to use for PostScript, in my opinion,
since PostScript is largely printable but can contain long lines and
occasional control character). Let's say a chararacter, or perhaps a line, is 
lost. Are you seriously going to claim that a casual user can correct this?
Can you? Be real.

Let's please try to keep in mind that we're trying to build an open-ended
framework here. As such I want to keep our options open on this so that
in the event that you're wrong on this and I'm right we can have checksums
on any encoding.

This is dangerously close to a SHOW STOPPER for me. If we're going to have
checksums, let's have them and not some half-assed thing that only partly
gives us what we want. I'd rather not have them at all than have them only
on BASE64.

                                        Ned


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