[cap-talk] Implementing a crypto brand: What are the security requirements?

[David Wagner]

Tyler Close writes:
>On 3/23/07, Mark Miller <erights at gmail.com> wrote:
>> To avoid a conflict, Tyler is now looking for another name
>> for the concept he was calling "Brand".
>
>I think I'm going to rename it "Purpose".

For what it's worth, I would find this name confusing.

I'm inclined to expect that this object is not something that you'll
want to pass around or expose very much.  It seems like only a temporary
object: we have a method that we want to return both a sealer and an
unsealer, but a method can only return one object, so we create a
pair object that contains both things.  Therefore, it doesn't seem
like it needs a short name.  And giving it a name that looks entirely
unrelated to Sealer and Unsealer suggests that it is somehow some new,
fundamental concept -- whereas I think the idea of a record that
contains a sealer and an unsealer is not very fundamental.  The fundamental
concept is that of a sealer and an unsealer, and once you understand
what they are, everything else can be described in terms of those two
concepts.  In general, minimizing the number of fundamental concepts
that someone has to understand reduces the mental burden.

How about a name like SealerUnsealerPair, or SealerUnsealer?

I have similar comments about "Will" and "Keyspace".  How about
SealerMaker?

Well, names are a matter of personal taste, and it's usually better
to have one person choosing names than to choose names by committee
(because with one person choosing names the naming scheme is more
likely to be consistent).  But I thought I'd pass on this feedback,
in case it is helpful to you.