timestamp notation @gnupg.org

[Jerome Baum]

>> Which was my point about adding a resolution/interval.
>> There's a difference between "2011-06-17 00:00:00" and
>> "2011-06-17/P1D" (both technically, and in court).
>
> Obviously, one refers to a one-second period of time and the other
> refers to a whole day. It would refer to a whole day even without the
> "/P1D" but that doesn't affect the point. In the examples "2011-06-16/P2D" or
> "2011-06-13/P1W" the time period makes a difference.

Right. Which is why I wrote "2011-06-17 00:00:00" -- there are
multiple interpretations of "2011-06-17", and e.g. ISO 8601 takes it
to be the instant at the start of the day. "2011-06-17/P1D" is
unambiguous (especially if we specify "the value is an ISO 8601
interval").

> If the time period were to be included as an additional field without
> altering the contents of the timestamp field, the latter would still
> reveal exactly the information it reveals now about the signer's time
> management behaviour. The value stored in the timestamp field would
> need to be altered, so that the exact time of signing was not stored
> but also so that existing apps didn't choke on it.

Exactly. I see it as two parts:

1. Add a notation for timestamp-interval. This makes the protocol more flexible.

2. Using # 1, we can then change application code to make the
implementation more flexible. e.g.: Add an option to round down to the
start of the day and set timestamp-interval to "<today>/P1D".

-- 
Jerome Baum
tel +49-1578-8434336
email jerome at jeromebaum.com
web www.jeromebaum.com
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