On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 07:32:00PM +0000, Ian G wrote:
David Shaw wrote:
My main argument for a V5 key is that doing patch work on V4 has the
potential to split the installed base into "old V4" and "new V4".
Rather than end up like that, just call "new V4" "V5" instead. It is
also an opportunity to fix the handful of little details that bug
people about V4: the default cipher can be AES instead of 3DES. The
key expiration dates can be hard or soft (not just soft as in V4).
And so on.
OK, so you would propose an intermediate
"fixes lots of little things" V5. I don't know
what the balance between these future
paths would be ...
What I'm trying to get at is there is no "intermediate". The word
intermediate implies that there is some ultimate goal and this would
be a step towards it. My argument is that there is no ultimate goal,
and shooting for one is something we can spend a lot of time arguing
over to no avail. Without a time machine, we don't know what
cryptography will become in the future. We can just do the best we
can with the knowledge we have, ponder where we think things are going
over the next 10 years, build in as much future proofing as we can
think of - and even then expect that eventually there will need to be
a V6.
David