Choice of Algorithm

[Atom Smasher]

On Mon, 30 May 2005, Werner Koch wrote:

> On Fri, 27 May 2005 10:53:04 -0400 (EDT), Atom Smasher said:
>
>> DSA being "The Standard" i don't think it's any more standard than RSA, 
>> although it is more common.
>
> DSS (DSA+SHA1) is the FIPS standard for digital signatures.
=============

DSA is "a" standard, but by no means "the" standard.


>> the common and widespread use of DSA instead of RSA for signatures
>
> No.  DSA has a couple of advantages of RSA:  It is a different algorithm 
> using another problem than RSA and the signatures creates are much 
> smaller than RSA signatures.
==============

i suspect that DSA would not have been pushed along nearly as far as it 
has if not for the patent on RSA. of course, if they wait much longer 
before updating DSA to officially support larger keys and hashes we'll 
start seeing more and more use of RSA with larger keys and hashes... if 
that happens, DSA will become a much less relevant standard.


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