-----Original Message-----
From: EKR [mailto:ekr(_at_)terisa(_dot_)com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 1998 10:06 AM
To: Paul Hoffman / IMC
Cc: ietf-smime(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Proposed Section 12 for CMS draft
For these object identifiers, the parameters field
of the digestAlgorithm value should be NULL.
Thank you for actually citing references that support your position.
There has been very loud and opinionated debate (publicly and privately)
about whether or not to omit the parameters or encode them as ASN.1
NULL. I have explained that current practice is to encode them as NULL,
but this has been a very hard fight for whatever reason, ending at the
current language.
I understand that this is an extremely trivial point (bordering on
insanely trivial). The simple fact is that the specifications for the
various algorithms specify that the algorithms should be encoded as
ASN.1 NULL, and current practice follows the specifications.
Part of the original debate surrounded the fact that one version of
X9.57 encoded the SHA-1 algorithms as absent. Personally, I think
that's X9.57's problem, not mine.
My opinion is to encode the parameters as ASN.1 NULL as the Creators of
those OIDs intended.
Blake
--
Blake C. Ramsdell
Worldtalk Corporation
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