Re: Compression

[Jeff Rafter <jeffrafter@earthlink.net>]

> A harder (but quite interesting) alternative would be to have a pointer on
> http://zip  to a document specifying the (de)compression algorithm, from
> which B could build its own native converter.

I don't know if it would be recreating the wheel-- or rather if this
compression system would be re-using the wheel-- but it seems that
encryption (public key/private key) fits very well in this model.  This is
plain in scenario three:

Scenario 3 :

 A tells B (in straight XML) that it has some data for it, and it wants to
encrypt it in the format found at URI http://encrypt with the decryption key
found at http://a/decrypt
B replies - please wait
B goes to the URL pointed to at http://encrypt, downloads and installs the
decryption algorithim (if not already present) and then downloads the public
key from http://a/decrypt
B tells A, I'm ready
A sends encrypted binary...

Jeff Rafter