Flac - Sep 2004 - [Flac-users] Fingerprint Verification Problem

Hi,

Amazing work you folks have been doing!  

I don't know if this is the proper place to talk about this, but this looks
like the best place to start!

I've been messing with the latest version of FLAC and as an end-user I have
this problem.  The verification process currently does not use the
fingerprint file during verification.  So, only the integrity of the FLAC
file is checked.  That's great if I only want to know that my files
downloaded correctly and will decompress without problems.  However, I also
want to be certain that the audio contained within the FLAC file is
identical to the originally seeded audio.

As I read it, the only way to do this is to export a new fingerprint file
and then manually compare the new one to the original fingerprint file that
was included with the seed.

This to me is highly inefficient and will lead to people not verifying the
audio at all and that will lead to chaos in the seed pools.

Maybe this is a problem for the FLAC Front-end people.  Can anybody direct
this concern to them, or let me know how I can do it myself?  

Thanks for your time,

Chris Paino
painoman@hawaii.rr.com
painocl@cpf.navy.mil

Chris Paino wrote, and I agree,

| However, I also
| want to be certain that the audio contained within the FLAC file is
| identical to the originally seeded audio.

As well we should; otherwise, what is the point of the file of the
fingerprints from the original FLAC files?

| As I read it, the only way to do this is to export a new fingerprint file
| and then manually compare the new one to the original fingerprint file that
| was included with the seed.

I've been wondering the same thing.

| This to me is highly inefficient ...

... and error-prone ...

| ... and will lead to people not verifying the
| audio at all and that will lead to chaos in the seed pools.

"Chaos" is a stronger word than I'd use, but still, there ought to
be a small
utility to extract the fingerprints of the FLAC files, compare them to the
fingerprint file, and report any agreements, disagreements, listings in the
fingerprint file for which there are no FLAC files, and FLAC files not listed
in the fingerprint file.  Not everyone has sort and diff commands available.

--- "Paino, Christopher L YN1(AW) (CPF N0084)"
<PainoCL@cpf.navy.mil>
wrote:
> I've been messing with the latest version of FLAC and as an end-user
> I have
> this problem.  The verification process currently does not use the
> fingerprint file during verification.  So, only the integrity of the
> FLAC
> file is checked.  That's great if I only want to know that my files
> downloaded correctly and will decompress without problems.  However,
> I also
> want to be certain that the audio contained within the FLAC file is
> identical to the originally seeded audio.
> 
> As I read it, the only way to do this is to export a new fingerprint
> file
> and then manually compare the new one to the original fingerprint
> file that
> was included with the seed.
> 
> This to me is highly inefficient and will lead to people not
> verifying the
> audio at all and that will lead to chaos in the seed pools.
So you are saying the the FLAC MD5 sum allows you to trust only
the data but not the source?  How this handled with shn trading?
It will be the same for FLAC.

The fingerprint file on the receiving end is redundant with
FLAC because the MD5 sum is already stored in the header.

Josh


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