On Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 11:33 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord(_at_)mit(_dot_)edu>
wrote:
Phill <hallam(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> writes:
But that 32 bit length really worries me. Just because people can’t
send 4GB messages today does not mean that they can’t or won’t in the
future. Do not build OpenPGP around assumptions based on SMTP
continuing forever. Use today is not limited to mail in any case.
If I have a 1TB archive file I am not going to want to break it into
chunks just to encrypt it.
That's what partial (indefinite) lengths are for.
Having to cut the dinner up into bite sized portions is a bit of a pain.
It also means that special code is required to do pass along data that has
already been encrypted in a different format.
Partial lengths are necessary to support streaming where the length is
indefinite. They can be used for large chunks but that is a hack.
But the point is that
each "size" parameter is 32 bits, always, instead of having a 1, 2, or
5-byte length parameter.
This is 2015, either make the size 64 bits or if you really think that the
space is a critical issue then use a self describing length format. The
body of any modern email is going to be UTF8 after all.
Even 64 bits starts to become an issue in exabyte stores. But only the NSA
and possibly Google have got one of those to date.
[snip]
Again, I am not sure that a complete overhaul is desirable. Just
pruning back the unnecessary features is probably sufficient.
+1
--
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
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