On Thu, Feb 16, 2006 at 10:32:11AM -0800, "Hal Finney" wrote:
Peter Gutmann writes:
Why not just include the pseudocode (or more usefully straight C code) for
the operation? That's the ultimate definitive description, any programmer
can understand it, and you don't run into the problems you do with the
english description.
(Even if an implementer doesn't understand it, they can always just cut &
paste the code).
We do have an extremely verbose, algorithmic description of the encrypted
message CFB mode, in section 12.8. It's basically English language
pseudocode. We could add another section for the somewhat-similar V3
key decryption, I guess. Seems like a lot of work for functionality
that we would hope to be deprecating, but I know people do need it to
work with the large body of V3 keys.
If the language in 1991 is suitable, perhaps we could just point to
1991. Is it legal to refer in this way to a document that we're
obsoleting in 2440bis?
David