From the code above, I have questions about the base58 used. I have search one base58.py in the google code (and elsewhere) which use the encoding:
"123456789abcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ"
but the C and java implementation of bitcoin use the the following encoding:
"123456789ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijkmnopqrstuvwxyz"
So I want to know whether there is consensus about the use of base58?
If I recall correctly Flickr also uses/used a base58 encoding - with a different character set(!) - that's the one you probably found on Google code.
I forgot to link to the base58 module I used - I borrowed base58.py from Abe:
https://github.com/jtobey/bitcoin-abe/blob/master/base58.py