>>>>> Niels Möller writes:
>>>>> Simon Josefsson writes:
>>>>> fre 2012-11-30 klockan 12:56 +0700 skrev Ivan Shmakov:
>>> While such a step would be logical, I'd like to note that while
>>> SHA-2 algorithms are widely known as SHA-256, etc., it's the
>>> SHA3-256, etc. forms that seems to be preferred for SHA-3.
>> I am inclined to agree — the name "SHA256" seems to be more popular
>> than "SHA2-256" or even "SHA2" according to Google hits. Grep RFCs
>> that use the term "SHA256" and that is also the more common usage.
>> Going back to the NIST specification:
>> If the naming in Nettle isn't an obvious mistake, I would prefer not
>> to change things. However, I don't really care strongly.
> If I may rephrase what you're both saying, it's that everybody else
> seems to be using the "mistaken" naming, and then it makes more sense
> for Nettle to stick to that common usage. That argument makes sense
> to me; maybe I got a bit carried away.
The point is that back when SHA-2 was designed, there was no
need to name its individual variants SHA2-224, SHA2-256, etc.
Perhaps if SHA-3 was anticipated at that time, a more generic
name scheme would have been devised. It didn't happen, however,
and SHA-2 variants are known as SHA-224, SHA-256, etc., and are
likely to be known under these names from now and forever (as
long as the algorithms remain in use, that is.) It isn't a
“mistake” — just the history.
> I think I'd still like to do the header split, sha.h -> sha1.h and
> sha2.h, for better consistency within Nettle, but that's less
> intrusive, and backwards compatibility is trivial, with a sha.h
> including both.
FWIW, I see nothing wrong in such a change. (And, actually, see
something right in it.)
--
FSF associate member #7257
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