[pcap-ng-format] Comments for unknown blocks [was Re: opsarea presentation?]

[Michael Richardson]

Michael Tuexen <tuexen at wireshark.org> wrote:
    >> I am already using new blocks (with bit 31 set to 1) in my
    >> application, and have no plan to specify them. It would still be great
    >> to be able to annotate them with comments in an application that does
    >> not support my extensions.

    > How would an application do that if it skipped it while reading the
    > file?  Hmm. Would it make sense to allow registering them with
    > specifying them?  Without this, several people can use the same block
    > types for different purposes...

Yes, getting numbers should be made very simple.  IANA has a fairly
reasonable set of processes for this.

I would even advocate when you set aside a dozen or so "private-use" numbers,
that we actually document them as "discard this block", so that the
private-use numbers usage never leaves the developers' workstation.

    >> Here's the type of comments that I would like to be able to write:
    >> 
    >> "I do not know what this block contains, but it seems to disclose
    >> private information"

Is the point here to say that a block should not be disclosed publically?
("private information"), or do you mean that the format is proprietary?

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