At 10:45 PM 7/8/98 +0100, Adam Back wrote:
It seems to me that allocating #7 for this or that which is not
implemented yet is a good enough idea, BUT that we need someone who
offers to act as a central clearling house to avoid collisions in IDs
for IDs allocated between now and when work on OpenPGP 2.0 starts.
This is necessary because for new algorithms, or new features etc.,
there may well be multiple proposals for the same algorithm. So
allocating #12 to the succesful AES candidate is in itself useless,
because there may be 2 or 3 incompatible implementations.
Better would be to allocate #12 to Tom Zerucha, #13 to cryptix, and so
on on demand, and then the variant which is chosen as the standard for
inclusion in OpenPGP 2.0 can use that ID.
Thoughts?
I expect that IANA will be distributing numbers for OpenPGP algorithms much
the way they distribute other numbers. People working on experiments have
11 numbers in each category to use. There are even 4 packet types reserved
for experiments.
I proposed reserving an algorithm number for AES in Washington last
December, and the answer from the working group was to wait until AES is
selected.
Jon
-----
Jon Callas jon(_at_)pgp(_dot_)com
CTO, Total Network Security 3965 Freedom Circle
Network Associates, Inc. Santa Clara, CA 95054
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