[Babel-users] BASE64 and hex encoding HMAC keys for user presentation

[Dave Taht]

I would like the bird and babel implementations to allow for and use
BASE64 and hex encodings.

This allows for a shorter, more human friendly representation of both
cryptographically generated keys and the keys humans are more likely
to remember and type without error. In the latter case, guidelines as
to length, mixed case and punctuation would be useful.

There are only so many hexadecimal jokes that are easy to remember,
deadbeef being the most common. Requiring that a hex key be prefixed
with 0x and that keys otherwise shown users
be in base64 would make for an easier deployment, and keys like
Get0ffMyLawnBadGuys and NSAdeliveryVAN easier on the eyes than the
equivalent: 0x19eb747df3322dac2705a746bb2b and 0x35201d7a58af7abc9500
and still allows for harder keys to be cryptographically generated by
other tools, like IG/MmDjiVJW0+ojz32+4KDtVuGlJJKkhYEEEkpbwTkE=

I do not off the top of my head know how much this compromises the
dynamic range of a given key, but I would hope that being


-- 

Dave Täht
CTO, TekLibre, LLC
http://www.teklibre.com
Tel: 1-831-205-9740