At 12:11 PM 2/21/2005 -0500, David Shaw wrote:
[...]
A v5 fingerprint is written "algo - colon - data", like 2:12 34 56 78
9A BC DE F0 ...(etc).
One neat thing you could do with this sort of typed, variable-length
fingerprint format is try out different 'algos' for shorter, more friendly
fingerprints:
Example 1: base32 the first 125 bits of a hash output, for a 25-character
fingerprint.
Example 2: search for a hash output beginning with 20 zero bits (< 1 sec on
a modern machine; search is done by placing random values in a subpacket),
then base32 the subsequent 100 bits for a 20-character fingerprint (with
120-bit security level).
Maybe that's too weird to be standardized, but at least it could be grafted
on easily. I.e., a key could be known by a standard 40 or 64-character
fingerprint, as well as a 20-character fingerprint in communities that
support that extension.
Trevor