- Do we really need more than 256 algorithms _in PGP_?
There are and will be lots of new algorithms. Even more if we take
into consideration the key size used. But will/should all these
really be used and specified in PGP?
- Do we have to change the existing spec (and implementations) that
use 8 bits for specifying the algorithm?
These are the existing algorithms from section 6 of
draft-ietf-pgp-formats00.txt:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Constants
This section describes the constants used in PGP Version 5.x.
6.1 Public Key Algorithms
1 - RSA
16 - Diffie-Helman, El Gamal variant
17 - DSS (Digital Signature Algorithm)
6.2 Symmetric Key Algorithms
0 - Plaintext
1 - IDEA
2 - Triple-DES (DES-EDE, 168 bit key)
3 - CAST5 (128 bit key)
6.3 Compression Algorithms
0 - Uncompressed
1 - ZIP
6.4 Hash Algorithms
1 - MD5
2 - SHA-1
? - RIPE-MD/160
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- If there's a need for more than 256 algorithms, how should these be
coded? In binary or in ascii? Fixed length or variable length?
/assar