> 
> The client has to decrypt the metadata and find the content-type
> anyway. That's what clients do, they fetch the file, decrypt it, find the
> content-type, and then deal with the file appropriately based on what type
> of file it is. If the metadata is in an unreadable format, it won't be
> able to determine the content type and so won't be able to do anything
> with the file except for display the undecipherable metadata to the user
> and save the data to disk. So if the file is a redirect formatted in XML
> then the redirect won't work. But in your system it won't work either. You
> just specify that redirects, etc. have to be FNP.
No.  You're really in some sort of mental block here.  My scheme only
specifies *when* FNP is used.  Content-type is a convention, its not a
hard written law.  I don't see why you have to have content-type to
determine anything.  Its useful when you're dealing with real data, but
its optional.

> > I will also specify that if you have a special file, then it must be
> formatted in FNP in order for FNP clients to read it. But it can also be
> formated in XML in order for XML clients to read it.
You're missing the point.  The client has to do a lot of work to determine
which form its in in your format.

> I think a better solution would be explicitly state what kind of metadata
> was in the metadadata field.
How?  You can't state what type of metadata is in the metadata field
without specifying a metadata form to store that representation?  Thats a
circular nonsensical requirement.

> Metadata-format==0 (0 for FNP, 1 for XML, etc..) is faster.
> I'd prefer something more explicit such as Metadata-format=="FNP" which
> shouldn't take much more time and would be much more explicit.
But your specifying that that be stored along with the data, which is a
nice little security hole.  Now people know what kind of metadata is being
used, which if it isn't common, reveals much about it.

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