Hi,

Keep in mind that some of us may have lower-spec PC's. I guess unpacking would take around 3 minutes on my box. It is an unnecessary step, too. Checking an MD5 sum is not any more difficult than unpacking a zip file. Nothing explains why the file should be zipped.

Regards, Endre

----- Original Message ----- From: "Erik Zachte" epzachte@chello.nl To: "Wikitech-L" wikitech-l@wikipedia.org Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 2:06 PM Subject: [Wikitech-l] Re: Tome Raider files at download.wikimedia.org

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Zipping is only done as a quick way to determine download was succesful, without need for md5sum.

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I think this is silly. The 32 bit CRC used in ZIP is even weaker than

MD5.

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Zipping the files puts a burden on the generator (takes time)

Yep, 5 seconds

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and the user (takes time, space)

Time: 5 seconds Space: never fill your PC up till the last Gb, same is true for all wikimedia downloads.

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and in this case actually increases the download.

Yep 0.1%

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Plus the determination whether the download was successfull needs to be done without ZIP or MD5sum, anyway, because these could be easily forged.

I'm talking transfer errors only.

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Digitally sign the files, and put up instruction on how to verify the signature.

I have other things to do.

Erik Zachte