Re: Cohen's paper on byte order

From: Mok-Kong Shen (mok-kong.shen@t-online.de)
Date: 04/05/03 

From: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de>
Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003 10:18:36 +0200

"Douglas A. Gwyn" wrote:
>
> Paul Crowley wrote:
> > By "uint8" I mean an integer between 0 and 255. Since this is what
> > disks store, what Internet networks carry, what ASCII characters are
> > stored in and so forth, it seems like the unit it's most important to
> > have a convenient word for. If neither "byte" nor "octet" is it then
> > I despair.
>
> uint8_t refers to a specific representation for such integer values,
> within the data memory of a computer program. There is still an
> issue of how this internal representation corresponds to the layout
> of bits in an external representation, for example a bit stream on
> a serial port. Since it is unlikely that the algorithm within the
> program will be totally symmetric with respect to bit order, the
> mapping needs to be known.

Certainly one has to output the right bits and not
deliver, say, bit 5 when the user demands bit 2. But
is that a problem 'specific' to AES?? If not, what's
wrong with the AES document??

M. K. Shen

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