Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal. To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2003/06/It saddens me that The Schwa Corporation has pretty much disappeared from the world wide INTAR-WEB. All that remains are a few broken links and smattering of images. “Stickpeople must not only be persuaded to accept Schwa's total control, they should be conditioned to ask for it by name.”
Today was one of many in a long string of days in which I got to play with the MYSTERIES of the PUBLIC KEY INFRASTRUCTURE. And stuff. Yes, I got to write code to parse and convert PKCS8 files. I got to write code to manipulate PKCS12 vaults. I got to parse X.509 certificates, as well as validate their certificate chains. I got to travel from PEM files to DER files and back again. I got to ponder the specifications of PKCS5v2.0 and PKCS11v2.01. You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? You either skipped this paragraph or fell asleep reading it. Would you like fries with that SHA1? I can supersize your key length from 512 bytes to 1024 for only X.509. I keep thinking that tomorrow will be better, but I have a three hour product roadmap meeting to look forward to.
Actually, it is all pretty fun (well, maybe not the meeting) because it is a lot of good coding and the PKI corner of cryptography is not one I have really done much in-depth work on. It does end up being a little stressful at times, especially trying to code stuff with deadlines while answering tech support email and remotely supporting an on-site employee.
Beer bread made from Pete's Wicked Ale is mighty tasty, indeed! That, and you have 5-bottles left from your 6-pack when complete. 5 lonely bottles just waiting–no pleading–to be imbibed.
