[47582] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: A note on vendor reaction speed to the e=3 problem
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Leichter, Jerry)
Thu Sep 28 21:50:14 2006
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:47:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Leichter, Jerry" <leichter_jerrold@emc.com>
To: Greg Rose <ggr@qualcomm.com>
Cc: "Travis H." <solinym@gmail.com>, Taral <taralx@gmail.com>,
cryptography@metzdowd.com
In-Reply-To: <p0623094bc141dcb3cf75@[10.0.1.3]>
| > VMS has for years had a simple CHECKSUM command, which had a
| > variant, CHECKSUM/IMAGE, applicable only to executable image files.
| > It knew enough about the syntax of executables to skip over
| > irrelevant metadata like link date and time. (The checksums
| > computed weren't cryptographic - at least the last time I used it,
| > many years ago. The command was created to use in patches to
| > provide a quick verification that the file being patched was "the
| > right one".) I've always found it surprising that no one seems to
| > have developed similar tools for Unix - with the Gnu libraries for
| > portable access to object/ executable files, it could be done
| > relatively easily.
|
| The "sum" command has existed in Unixes since before VMS
| existed.
I have yet to see a version of "sum" that understands object or
executable file syntax and skips the "noise" stuff.
| Checksum has too many characters in the name ;-).
Yes, but VMS allow you to abbreviate automatically to the shortest
unique name. Four characters (for top-level commands) is guaranteed
to be sufficient at least among vendor-provided commands, so "chec"
would always be safe. In practice, I think "ch" was probably enough,
beating out "sum". :-) Of course, you could also abbreviate
option names to the shortest unique value, so ch/i would almost
certainly have given you "checksum/image" in even fewer characters
than a hypothetical "sum -i" option for Unix. :-) :-)
-- Jerry
| Greg.
|
|
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