Re: [office-comment] ODF 1.1: Heads up on Document Crypto

["David A. Wheeler" <dwheeler@dwheeler.com>]

MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given):
> FYI: Blowfish is not recommended by CRYPTREC
> (http://www.cryptrec.go.jp/english/method.html).

A clarification: Blowfish is not included in the list
of recommended crypto algorithms by the
Japanese government.  But the list does NOT
say, or give any indication, that Blowfish is
a fundamentally flawed algorithm.

An international standard typically includes facilities
that support many different organizations, not
all of which are actually needed for particular organizations.
ODF actually includes a lot of things important for
supporting Japanese (e.g., IRIs, Ruby text) that
an author of English text would also find useless, too.

Organizations (such as governments) often
limit which parts should be used, for various reasons.
I don't see any problem
with ODF including support for Blowfish, and then
the Japanese government (or whoever) adding that
they won't use that particular algorithm in their
own organization.

The same thing happens with TCP/IP standards.
There are a boatload of standards for crypto, and
for various crypto algorithms; organizations then
determine which algorithms they will support.

So I see no problem here.

--- David A. Wheeler