At 10:56 AM -0700 7/29/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>On Sat, 29 Jul 2000, Adam Back wrote:
>
>>
>>Tim May writes:
>>> This is the key question, no pun intended. A kind of language for
>>> generating complex protocols was something Eric Hughes and I
>>> discussed at length before even holding the first meeting of what
>>> became the Cypherpunks group.
>>
>>SDL (Specification and Description Language) sounded interesting as a
>>domain specific language for crypto protocols the specification of the
>>crypto protocol would also be it's implementation.
>
>Hmmm. Offhand I'd say there's no hope unless the language is
>well-known to lots of people prior to this application of it.
>As a long-time programmer in scheme, I can say from experience
>that it is *IDEAL* for cipher work thanks to the built-in
>extended numeric functionality - but nobody uses it because
>nobody knows it.
I know it, or at least I used to know Scheme quite well. (I worked in
ZetaLisp at Intel.) And a very large number of CS students got
trained in Scheme through Abelson and Sussman's classic text,
"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs."
However, I'm not at all convinced that Scheme (or CLOS) has any
dramatic advantage over Python, Smalltalk, C++, or any other
language...at least for the purposes we're discussing here. I could
even make a case that "Mathematica" is at least as ideal, given its
functional notation and obvious bignum strenghs, but there are many
strikes against Mathematica (cost, efficiency, to name a few).
And the core ciphers, the numeric-intensive part, are arguably the
least important part of what I'm talking about. For the cipher part,
C is fine. The hard part, though, is getting the _wrappers_ around
the code so that complex protocols can be built Lego-style, as more
than just combining subroutine libraries.
Wei Dai has commented that he thinks it's straightforward to extend
existing libraries in this direction. I think not, but I hope he
proves me wrong.
--Tim May
--
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
