[noise] Versioning (was Re: Noise Certificates?)

[Trevor Perrin]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 5:52 PM, Stephen Touset <stephen at squareup.com> wrote:
> On Jul 29, 2014, at 4:39 PM, Trevor Perrin <trevp at trevp.net> wrote:
>
>> I don't think a cert format should be standardized in the Noise core
>> (which should probably just be boxes and pipes), but if people wanted
>> to build out infrastructure around this like certs, resumption, etc.,
>> that seems fine to discuss here.
>
> Ok, just checking. I presume a similar story holds for cipher negotiation? :)

I don't think cipher negotiation is useful, since ciphers don't change
or break often enough to need a special negotiation mechanism.

I think having *version* negotiation for an entire protocol is useful,
so you can migrate to new versions which might include any change.
I've been assuming that would be handled outside the noise core, i.e.
the client might prefix its first message with a version number or
something.

But arguably we should do more to support versioning.  It would be
good if anyone trying to create a "real" protocol around this could
think about this and see what would work for them.

Trevor