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Re: Names of algorithms



Ron,

	I think this message departs from our conversation on the phone today.
The structure you called an algorithm name is actually a public key block.
The algorithm name, I thought, would be something like:

(alg <PK-alg-name> <hash-alg> <input-format-alg> <output-format-alg>)

e.g. (alg rsa sha-1 pkcs1 string)

where "string" is an output format that means "do nothing".

By this (as I remember our discussion), a public key block might be:

(public-key (alg rsa sha-1 pkcs1 string) (e &03) (n &020f))

I like the format you give for its slight brevity, but I don't
think we should call it an algorithm name when it is a full
public key description.  It also misses the output format
algorithm name.

 - Carl


At 06:19 PM 4/1/97 EST, you wrote:
>The proposed format for the name of a signature (verification) algorithm is:
>	( <key-type> 
>          <hash-alg> 
>          <data-format-alg> 
>          <signature-alg> 
>	)
>
>An example of such an algorithm name is
>	( public-key
>	  ( md5 )
>	  ( pkcs1 )
>	  ( rsa ( n &7823fca14457 ) ( e &03 ) )
>        )


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