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Re: Base-64 encoding proposal

To: rivest@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Ron Rivest), spki@c2.net
Subject: Re: Base-64 encoding proposal
From: Bill Frantz <frantz@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 21:19:39 -0700
In-Reply-To: <199704160240.AA02036@swan.lcs.mit.edu>
Sender: owner-spki@c2.net

At 7:40 PM -0700 4/15/97, Ron Rivest wrote:
>I think the "right" way to think of base-64 encodings is as follows.
>Rather than thinking of base-64 as a way of encoding some object
>(a byte string or maybe an S-expression), just think of base-64
>as a 6-bit per character channel rather than an 8-bit per character
>channel.  You just have to read enough 6-bit chars to get your
>next 8 bits of data, which you spit out.  This has nice side effects,
>such as eliminating the need for a separate "fragmentation" mechanism.

Yes.  Base-64 can be proof against things that are even worse than EBCDIC
translation.  Been there, done that.


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References:

Base-64 encoding proposal

From: rivest@theory.lcs.mit.edu (Ron Rivest)

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