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Re: Ye say it's binary data ye be wantin'?



At 20:47 2/23/96, Rich Salz wrote:
>Thanks to Perry for reminding me to send this here...
>
>> I have made this offer before.
>>
>> If the IETF wants a C-like abstraact notation with efficient coding
>> rules and free source, ... and it's an ISO standard already, OSF is
>> happy to help with DCE IDL, the free IDL compiler, and a copyright-
>> free vresion of the specification that defines the bits on the wire.
>>       /r$
>>

Rich,

        thanks for distributing the observation.  Do you have a URL for
us to read?

        However, I'm not sure it's binary data we be wantin.

        I learned at the feet of John Warnock who preached that if you're
moving data between different computers, you have only one choice:  ASCII.
He was a little extreme, I grant you, but PostScript *did* succeed and
quite possibly because it was ASCII.

I'm not totally anti-binary -- and wasn't back when I worked for Warnock
-- but I want to offer an ASCII alternative for the sake of discussion.
The following is actually a true statement, using real PGP keys, and I offer
this as a sample ASCII certificate.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

Certifying-Key: 0x7362BE39: 61 E2 DE 7F CB 9D 79 84  E9 C8 04 8B A6 32 21 A2
Signed-Key: 0x40609E7D: 5C 03 99 72 5D 33 D2 AD  05 FD 60 88 28 18 A1 88
Validity: Indefinite
Meaning:  I testify that the person who knows how to sign messages
        with the private key corresponding to the signed key above, is a
        well qualified digital logic designer.  I know him by the name
        Joe and worked with him between 1987 and 1994.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBMS9Z+FQXJENzYr45AQEzIAP+OTY4COjG10zPCGJyVcv58SLMw3gy10gq
WMMEIvjbXPbwr/XkeP20PABk1ylO+vMU+3584ZvYtLlOAgiWWesY/Kbj+dvxjzqJ
MaT4Zm4hc8Hzv2MtqxoQ2TXvhrJPrzzsAsG448p3wmOyr/D8nImXCClqRN26hR0K
8icwNeR+Iko=
=l9kV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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