From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 94 15:05:51 PST
To: "L. Todd Masco" <cactus@hks.net>
Subject: Re: GUCAPI (Grand Unified Crypto API)
In-Reply-To: <199412062119.QAA14522@bb.hks.net>
Message-ID: <9412062305.AA04906@yaz-pistachio.MIT.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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To: "L. Todd Masco" <cactus@hks.net>
cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: GUCAPI (Grand Unified Crypto API) 

> I've been thinking a lot recently about how to implement a generic API for
> crypto such that the interface could be independent of the cipher used.
> What I'm thinking of is something like:

Why do all this?  There already exists a Generic Security System API,
GSSAPI, which is an Internet standard (or there is at least an Internet
Draft -- I'm not sure what the current status is right now, and given
that the IETF is going on this week, it's status may change).

Currently, the only GSSAPI bindings I know of are for Kerberos V5 and
Kerberos V4, although there could easily be bindings for RSA, PGP, or
whatever you want.

I suggest you read up on GSSAPI, which provides much of the
functionality that you want, plus a lot more.  You would just have to
write a PGP binding to get it to work, but that shouldn't be too
difficult (I haven't looked at this).  It'll be even easier when there
is a PGP API.

- -derek

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