At 11:19 PM -0800 12/4/2000, Bram Cohen wrote:
>On Mon, 4 Dec 2000, William Allen Simpson wrote:
>
>> We could use the excuse of AES implementation to foster a move to a
>> new common denominator.
>
>AES is silly without an equivalently good secure hash function, which we
>don't have right now.
>
>[SHA-2 looks pretty good. What's your problem with it? --Perry]
>
>We already have too many common denominators. I'm waiting for something to
>stop looking like an experiment to actually start advocating use of a
>particular crypto application.
>
>-Bram Cohen
At the risk of adding yet another "common denominator," I think AES
might be of use in breaking the PGP 2.6 deadlock. As I understand
things from this thread, the OpenPGP folks object on principle to
supporting 2.6 message formats because they require patented IDEA.
Since source is widely available, it should be easy to create new
versions of PGP 2.6 with AES128 as a drop-in replacement for IDEA. A
utility could be kludged up to convert encrypted key rings. If
OpenPGP supported that format (the patent issue would be gone and I
gather the code already exists) there might be a basis for compromise.
Arnold Reinhold
