I agree with Martin. If the point is to "to protect against cryptography
that is not used", then not using the de-facto standard in signing
open source distribution files, which today is PGP/GPG, misses that
point :-)
I agree as well. For me, the main reason for cryptography not being used is key distribution. Sure, I have a signed file, but without a key what's the point? And if I'm creating a file, why sign it if I don't know how to securely publish my key? So inventing a new signing infrastructure without a key distribution process doesn't encourage me to use crypto at all...
It's a good idea to check integrity, but that can be done using
hashes.
+1 hashing is fine, and I don't have any problem with the hashing aspects of the PEP.
Maybe the signing aspects could be deferred to a subsequent PEP, to be thrashed out separately? I know Daniel has a strong interest in the signing aspect, so I'm reluctant to suggest just dropping it, but I'd rather it not be a showstopper for the rest of the current proposal.
Paul.