Crypto, deimos, and ares

[Sean Kelly]

Brad Anderson wrote:
> Regan Heath wrote:
>> You might be interested in some existing crypto work I've done:
>>   http://svn.dsource.org/projects/deimos/trunk/etc/crypto/hash/
>>
>> The library "deimos" never really got off the ground, I think it may be 
>> tome to salvage what can be salvaged from deimos and put it somewhere 
>> else, perhaps in "Ares", Shaun? If the crypto stuff is unsuitable for
>> any  reason let me know and I can re-work it.
> 
> Woo Hoo!  Definitely send the crypto stuff to Ares if Sean will have it.  I
> have a blowfish algorithm that I'm working on - not sure how it stacks up with
> 'r's version, but a consistent API for all of the crypto algorithms would be
> great.
> 
> encryptString(char|wchar|dchar)
> decryptString(char|wchar|dchar)
> 
> encryptFile()
> decryptFile()
> 
> I'm not sure if this 'consistent' API is possible given the differences in the
> crypto libs, or if it's a good idea at all.

I think it would be useful to have both standalone functions and filters 
for IO.  However, I think "standalone functions" may be a bit 
misleading, as some attention should probably be paid to supporting 
different encoding schemes and such with the same basic interface.  I 
don't have a tremendous amount of experience here, but I suppose the 
.NET API might be one model to consider.  The easiest thing in Ares 
terms might be to consider this an add-on library, since crypto is 
probably not so essential that it should be considered a core component. 
  So interface consistency would be an ultimate goal, but it wouldn't be 
tied to the core library release schedule.  This would also make it 
easier to offer this as a standalone library for those who prefer 
Phobos.  Does this sound reasonable?


Sean