Re: Digest mess

On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Scott Lawrence wrote:

> 
>   Let me take one more stab at this.
> 
>   My proposed change is that we remove the problematic headers from
>   the entity digest calculation and replace them with the use of a
>   client-generated nonce.
> 

Certainly a client nonce makes sense for digest-ng.  You have argued 
more strenuously than anyone about the need to start over with a new
scheme.  I think that is the consensus that has emerged.  Strip down
digest to its minimal original intent of being a replacement for 
Basic.  And start again with digest-ng.  There is no way to develop
a completely incompatible scheme and call it digest.

The stripped down digest will be valuable.  It is easy to list tons
of problems it will NOT solve -- and tons of problems that with only
a "little tweak" it could solve.  But please don't, as we are all aware 
what it doesn't do and those little tweaks turned out to be a slipery
slope.  Lets solve those problems in new scheme.

John Franks
john@math.nwu.edu