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On Jul 26, 2008, at 5:13 PM, Duane wrote:
Ok, I've made some updates, firstly removing specific references to
DNS
since this is no longer specifically mean to be for DNS and I've other
changes to remove references to using the user id field, and instead
using user attributes to have the information in a format much more
suitable for computers, this makes more sense to me than a blob of
string doesn't need to be split up and parsed to extract the
information.
http://open-pgp.info/wiki/index.php?title=Standardisation_of_OpenPGP_Keys_for_Server_Purposes
Is there anything I've missed or overlooked at all?
I don't think it was necessary to get rid of all of the user id uses.
RFC 4880 and 2440 were carefully explicit. Here's the 4880 language:
5.11. User ID Packet (Tag 13)
A User ID packet consists of UTF-8 text that is intended to
represent
the name and email address of the key holder. By convention, it
includes an RFC 2822 [RFC2822] mail name-addr, but there are no
restrictions on its content. The packet length in the header
specifies the length of the User ID.
Note the words "intended" and "by convention." Also, "... but there
are no restrictions on its content."
The discussion on this is similar to a discussion as to whether
someone should put DNS information in a new RR or in a TXT record.
Yes, it's probably better in some respect to expand the user
attributes, but there's nothing wrong with just putting the text in
there, especially since there's all this existing code that can
display it correctly.
There are plenty of cases where a User ID contains nothing but
descriptive text ("XYZ Corp Security Alert Signing Key") or non-email
names like an X.509 Distinguished Name.
I agree with people who say that a User Attribute packet is better in
a pure sense. However, the downside of that is that new UAs need
setting/getting/display code. Just dropping the text in a UID packet
is clunkier, but works everywhere.
Knowing when to use which is merely wisdom.
Jon
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