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Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:53:58 +0100
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Subject: Re: Binary versus text and compiler versions, was: Re: Will Ada-95
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Date: 2013-12-11T15:53:59+01:00
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On 11.12.13 09:35, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Dec 2013 23:08:40 +0000 (UTC), Simon Clubley wrote:
>
>> On 2013-12-10, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> But if I was writing this sort of code, I wouldn't worry about line endings
>>> at all, and simply encrypt the file as binary data, using Stream_IO to read
>>> it in and out.
>>
>> Thank you. That's one of a number of things I don't understand about this.
>>
>> A serious encryption tool is going to treat the input as a opaque stream of
>> bytes not as text.

I'd think encryption will be processing a stream of bits, no?

What's a byte and why or how should the dissection of the stream
into bytes be fine whereas a textual representation should not?
Units of 2**(n*8) may be a good choice for some algorithms written
for n*8-bit hardware, if it's not using signs.

Anyway, a serious attempt at encryption requires, I guess, a SINA box
or some such.

> That depends. I remember porting early versions of PGP to SysV and VMS,
> back in early 90's. It was all about text files which must have been
> converted, recoded etc in order to be readable.

Indeed, pieces of data and pieces of text are isomorphic,
e.g. by way of

    Base64 : Bits -> Text.

The issue if binary vs text thus seems one of practicality, not
one of encryption?

Text is sometimes seen as more robust in the presence of old
software that has char caused MSB problems. So, given PGP has ascii
armored coding, in support of stone aged transport layers, why not
just require that encryption start at 7bit data units?
(This restriction helps keeping faulty produces in place, and it
allows continuing the ASCII caused destruction of well educated text
processing. ;-)