RE: iSCSI: BASE64 and numerical values

["Julian Satran" <Julian_Satran@il.ibm.com>]

I am in the process of the reviewing the needs for large numerical values (based on cryptography requirements for specified and other known schemes that vendors may want to use). If The results will indicate that large numerical values are of marginal use I will drop base64 for numbers. If not I will leave it as is.
As for you "confusion and ambiguity in
this realm of the spec (e.g., decimal representation, leading zeroes,
definitions of field size, byte swapping issues, etc.)" I am afraid that I don't see how base64 different than hexadecimal
and I assume a statement about ordering solves both.

Julo

"Michael Krueger" <michael.krueger@windriver.com> 05/20/2002 10:37 PM Please respond to "Michael Krueger"

To:        Julian Satran/Haifa/IBM@IBMIL, <ips@ece.cmu.edu>         cc:                 Subject:        RE: iSCSI: BASE64 and numerical values

On Saturday, May 18, 2002 1:31 AM, Julian Satran wrote:
> Yes for regular numerical values it makes sense. We will have to keep
> it for large numerical values used for cryptography.  Julo

I'm glad to see that base-64 encoding will be dropped for numbers, but I'm
afraid I still have a small issue with the language being used here.  As I
understand it, "large numerical values" are NOT used for cryptography; the
keys, challenges, responses, etc., are large BINARY ITEMS*, not large
numbers.  I still believe that failing to make a distinction between numbers
and binary items is what's behind a lot of the confusion and ambiguity in
this realm of the spec (e.g., decimal representation, leading zeroes,
definitions of field size, byte swapping issues, etc.).

Michael

*I have no special attachment to the term "binary items"; call them "binary
strings," "bit patterns," or whatever you like . . . but please just don't
call them "numeric" or "numbers."

--
Michael J. Krueger              mailto:michael.krueger@windriver.com
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