"L" == L Sassaman <rabbi(_at_)quickie(_dot_)net> writes:
L> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
L> On Thu, 25 May 2000, Jon Callas wrote:
If this blunder needs to be fixed, the correct way to fix it is to
make a V5 key structure. (For that matter, there are a couple
other things I'd fix, too, if we made a V5 key structure.)
However, I think that as unfortunate as this is, simplicity and
compatibility override aesthetics, and we should just live with
things as they are.
L> It's not just aesthetics. This issue was brought up by Marc
L> Horowitz at the Keyserver Symposium this week. He thinks that it
L> could have a positive impact on the internal workings of the
L> keyservers,...
That doesn't compute.
If key servers want to have "high order" bits used as lookup index,
perhaps so standard database mechanisms that search for "match on
leading bits" can be used, that's fine. This does NOT require a
protocol change! A key server is perfectly well entitled to swizzle
the data around in any way it chooses for its own convenience; all
that is expected of it is that it unswizzles it before sending it back
out.
So if it's good for key servers, let the key servers internally turn
the fingerprint end for end. Trivial coding and no protocol change
needed. Not only that, but if you use a different database where this
approach is not useful, or even counterproductive, or a different
optimization is better, then you just do something else instead. But
all of this is an internal implementation detail.
paul