Cryptographic protocols and specifications often come with registries that map numeric or string identifiers to algorithms or suites. You’ll find them everywhere. TLS, X.509, SSH, PGP, you name it. They enumerate signature algorithms, hash functions, ciphers, key exchanges, encodings… all sorts of primitives and parameters. There is even a whole bureaucracy set up to handle the IETF/IANA ones. People have opinions on its bylaws. I think these registries are a design smell at best, and outright harmful in most designs. https://buttondown.email/cryptograp...ryptography-dispatches-registries-considered/
