4 ms·
A “standard” based off a proposal from Microsoft. Run through the RSA committee. Implemented by two relatively young engineers. One at Netscape. One at Micr
by jmspring 5y ago
A “standard” based off a proposal from Microsoft. Run through the RSA committee. Implemented by two relatively young engineers. One at Netscape. One at Microsoft.
I was on the Netscape side of the house.
I love when this article pops up.
I learned a lot about ASN1and BER/DER coding in the process.
- moritonal 5y agoBy that do you mean you were the young engineer at Netscape who helped design this? If so do you have any defence with the joy of context as why some of those decisions were made? I'd be curious at why things like "Encode these as bit strings." came about?
- jmspring 5y agoI was a junior engineer - it was 25+ years ago. The spec started with a proposal from Microsoft. I happen to agree with The critique. I also recall trying to implement some of the nebulous things and it was painful. The code for encoding/deciding der/BEr was hand rolled.
- toyg 5y agoJust look into how Javascript came about, if you want to understand how little "defence" they can realistically put forward for any choice made around that time.