[Cryptography] Is ASN.1 still the thing?

[Jason Cooper]

Hi Howard,

On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 06:41:31PM +0000, Howard Chu wrote:
> Jason Cooper wrote:
> >On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 01:11:39PM +1000, James A. Donald wrote:
...
> >>Cryptographers specify data formats are in ASN.1 because that way
> >>you can get a unique hash or checksum of the data, regardless of
> >>which compiler you are using, and whether your machine is big endian
> >>or little endian.
> >
> >They do?  That seems odd.  I really hope ASN.1 isn't being chosen for
> >the reasons you've outlined.  Above and beyond the complexities of
> >parsing it, there's also the difficulty of parsing it on embedded
> >systems.  From my experience, it's extraordinarily difficult to parse as
> >a stream.
> 
> Fwiw, liblber in OpenLDAP is extremely efficient for parsing ASN.1.
> It allows OpenLDAP slapd to run at line speed, even on multigigabit
> network links.

So I see it's a part of the OpenLDAP repo at:

  http://www.openldap.org/software/repo/openldap.git

Under libraries/liblber/ .

Would you consider breaking that out into a separate repository?  I and
a few others would be willing to assist with the effort if you are.

thx,

Jason.