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ssbc / multiserver

A single interface that can work with multiple protocols, and multiple transforms of those protocols (eg, security layer)
MIT License
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why do multiserver addresses not include the "full" public key? #9

Closed ahdinosaur closed 6 years ago

ahdinosaur commented 6 years ago

i notice that multiserver addresses, like

net:wx.larpa.net:8008~shs:DTNmX+4SjsgZ7xyDh5xxmNtFqa6pWi5Qtw7cE8aR9TQ=

truncate the "full" public key to 

DTNmX+4SjsgZ7xyDh5xxmNtFqa6pWi5Qtw7cE8aR9TQ=

instead of

@DTNmX+4SjsgZ7xyDh5xxmNtFqa6pWi5Qtw7cE8aR9TQ=.ed25519

as is the format used everywhere else.

for more context, this became annoying when i wanted to write a jinja template for file managed by Salt Stack, where i had access to the values in ~/.ssb/secret but had no ability to truncate the public key as required to create a multiserver address in the template.

i've now worked around this problem, but i still was wondering on the thinking behind it, i don't know much about how important it is to have the curve in the key, as i think this is also implied when saying shs.

dominictarr commented 6 years ago

well, it's because shs isn't configurable and only supports ed25519 keys anyway, so putting that in there wouldn't do anything except make it longer. It's also trying to be as generic as possible, shs and multiserver don't have to be used with ssb.

ahdinosaur commented 6 years ago

cool, thanks for the response!