Mailing List Archive

WKD hashing choice z-base-32
== WKD protocol

Am Montag 02 August 2021 15:47:03 schrieb Steffen Nurpmeso:
> Yes, no, my problem is about the the special z-base-32 step, for
> which there is no tool around by default.

https://wiki.gnupg.org/EasyGpg2016/PubkeyDistributionConcept?highlight=%28z-base-32%29
documents the reasons for some design decisions, it says:

| The reason for using this encoding instead of a standard hex encoding is to
| visually distinguish such an item from a fingerprint. Furthermore, in
| contrast to Base-64 and other Base-32 encodings, z-Base-32 has been
| optimized for easier human use.

So it is _not_ a fingerprint. :)
And the hashing and encoding is done to get an equal length string
without funny characters so it can easily be put as files in a directory tree.

== ssh

> But i personally still
> struggle with the base64 that SSH now uses for fingerprinting

For manual visual comparison, using -o VisualHostKey=yes works for me in
many situations.

Bernhard

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