Re: [Isms] fingerprint TCs and hash types

[Wes Hardaker <wjhns1 at hardakers.net>]

>>>>> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:29:21 +0200, Juergen Schoenwaelder <j.schoenwaelder at jacobs-university.de> said:

JS> I am wondering what the correct term is here: fingerprint versus
JS> (crptographic) hashvalue versus message digest.

I originally used hash in a lot of places, but in the end because 5280
and 5425 (eg) refer specifically to "fingerprints" I decided that
terminology should be the correct choice and was in fairly wide use in
our other documentation.

JS> My understanding is that FingerprintValue contains simply the output
JS> generated by the hash function identified by FingerprintType,
JS> correct?

Correct.
 
JS> In SNMP-USER-BASED-SM-MIB, we have object identifies for
JS> authentication and encryption protocols and the relevant columns of
JS> the tables use SNMPv2-SMI's AutonomousType. Can we do the same? Is
JS> FingerprintType as a separate TC really needed?

That's a good point.  I wrote the TCs in an effort to more formally
standardize the description of the type, as opposed to being generic.
Otherwise you end up reproducing a lot of DESCRIPTION text everywhere
describing what the column is supposed to refer to.  Kind of like how
TransportDomain is also defining something "common".  Why wasn't a
AutonomousType used for that instead?  IMHO, we're trying to define a
commonality among multiple objects (the MIB in the TLSTM document uses
each one 3 times, for example).  The USM MIB really doesn't.  It uses a
auth and priv algorithm in just one column in just one table.

-- 
Wes Hardaker
Cobham Analytic Solutions