On 3/13/03 11:15 AM, "David Shaw" <dshaw(_at_)jabberwocky(_dot_)com> wrote:
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On Thu, Mar 13, 2003 at 12:25:12AM -0500, Jeroen C. van Gelderen wrote:
On Wednesday, Mar 12, 2003, at 22:14 US/Eastern, David Shaw wrote:
In section 5.2.4.1. Subpacket Hints:
An implementation SHOULD put the two mandatory subpackets, creation
time and issuer, as the first subpackets in the subpacket list,
simply to make it easier for the implementer to find them.
Both PGP and GnuPG put the creation time in the hashed area, and the
issuer in the unhashed area, and the most recent draft was revised to
match this reality. Given that, perhaps it would be good to modify
the phrase slightly with "... as the first subpackets in their
respective subpacket lists..."
Just so I understand... given that a valid OpenPGP message can have
these packets anywhere in the list, how is it easier for a conformant
implementation to find them? Faster... now that I could understand. But
it would seem that any valid OpenPGP implementation will have to
implement the complete locating algorithm anyway. What is it that I'm
missing?
The subpacket areas are intended to be unordered. I think specifying
ordering is a bad idea, as you have to solve the general case, anyway.
OpenPGP needs simplification, not more arcane rules.
Jon