From: cactus@seabsd.hks.net (L. Todd Masco)
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 94 18:38:40 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: GUCAPI (Grand Unified Crypto API)
Message-ID: <199412070243.VAA17789@bb.hks.net>
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In article <199412070014.AA13652@sequoia.itd.uts.EDU.AU>,
Matthew Gream <M.Gream@uts.EDU.AU> wrote:
>Ohh, I misinterpreted. You're talking about a high level interface that
>assumes cryptographic operations are already being used for specific
>purposes (ie. `signature', `GetMIC', `VerifyMIC', `Wrap', `Unwrap').
>
>I was thinking more about the layer below this, the primitive operations 
>that don't make assumptions on what the user is going to do; and 
>limitations placed thereupon.

Actually, both interfaces are reasonable for the scope of this discussion.
I don't have specific goals in mind yet: I want to bounce around ideas before
coming up with something more specific.

The GSSAPI has the advantage that Kerberbos services have already been
provided for that API: There's no reason, however, that the two goals
need to be mutually exclusive.  

I'll have to read the GSSAPI doc carefully and get a sense of what problems
it solves.

>I found
>out yesterday that I've taken out a prize for the best work conducted
>by someone under the age of 26. There is a certain irony in being
>awarded the prize by a Government department :-).

Nevertheless, congratulations!
- -- 
Todd Masco     | "'When _I_ use a word,' Humpty-Dumpty said, in a rather
cactus@hks.net |  scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean -
cactus@bb.com  |  neither more nor less.'"   - Lewis Carroll
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