Anyway, I agree with the people who are arguing for MUST for 3DES,
DSA, Elgamal; and SHOULD for RSA, IDEA, MD5, and MAY for the rest.
Presumably SHA-1 also belongs in MUST?
A very basic reason: SHOULD is only for things that are strongly desired
by all implementations. If we have a strong algorithm for a MUST and
another strong algorithm for a SHOULD, I see no point to tossing another
SHOULD in. Many developers try to implement all SHOULD-level specs, and
this would cause needless software bloat with little definable benefit.
3DES is MUST, because everybody trusts it, but nobody really likes it :-)
IDEA is fine, and fast enough to use, but encumbered.
Adding CAST5 as a SHOULD sets a direction that we want a fast free
algorithm to be the primary operating mode, which I think is good,
and says that enough people trust CAST5 that it's the best choice -
is that realistic?
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts(_at_)ix(_dot_)netcom(_dot_)com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639