Re: [tor-dev] [RFC] Proposal for the encoding of prop224 onion addresses

Hi George,

George Kadianakis: [...]

[D3] Do we like base32???

  In this proposal I suggest we keep the base32 encoding since we've been
  using it for a while; but this is the perfect time to switch if we feel
  the need to.

  For example, Bitcoin is using base58 which is much more compact than
  base32, and also has much better UX properties than base64:
     https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Base58Check_encoding#Background

  If we wanted to get a more compact encoding, we could adopt base58 or
  make our own adaptation of it. In this proposal I'm using base32 for
  everything, but I could be persuaded that now is the time to use a better
  encoding.

While the addresses are definitely too long to be fun to type, there are still use cases where the addresses will be typed. So I think we should consider everything which would make them easier to type and compare. Like others stated, base58 will not make the addresses easier to type, because they would be case sensitive.

But maybe it would help to separate them into groups of 4 characters, separated maybe by a dash, which would make them look like this:

tbi5-tdxb-osio-tpha-wjyu-7f5p-w5tl-nvbv-fjrj-7mes-kbsn-wr2b-qbu2-t4gg.onion

Cheers