Update:Also check out the new improved library.
A while ago I did some QT programming. I think the QT API is very good and useful. I like things about C++ more than Java, but at the same time QT takes away most of the annoyances with C++. Especially, developing cross-platform GUI applications is very nice with QT.
One thing I missed was a simple encryption library. I mean, there is QCA, but how simple is it to use?
So, I did the forbidden thing, and implemented my own encryption library. Ok – it is for many reasons a very stupid thing to do. But it was fun, I did it anyway, it works, and I will share it with you 😉
Well, I did another forbidden thing; I based my library on RC5 – a very elegant and simple encryption algorithm, protected by patents (at least in the US, where I do not live). Anyway, it is of course allowed to make an open source implementation of RC5.
The downloadable package contains three things: the library, a command line encryption utility using the library, and a little command line “unit test” tool. The files are named as:
- main.cpp – test utility
- simpleqtrc5.* – the library
- simpleqtrc5_test.* – the unit test tool
As always with QT, building is very easy:
$ qmake $ make
I used QT 4.5 and QT 4.6. Perhaps you are fine with older versions as well.
I suggest you have a look in the main.cpp-file, or simpleqtrc5.h for examples, instructions and documentation.
The library of course uses QT datatypes, so you can use it very naturally from any QT code. The core is implemented in somewhat optimized C code, that only uses QT datatypes, so it should be 100% portable. There are no non-QT dependencies.
I have implemented both a 32 bit version and a 64 bit version of the algorithm. Of course, both versions work on any CPU, and you chose algorithm at runtime. 32 bit algorithm is faster on 32 bit cpu, and 64 bit algorithm is faster on 64 bit cpu. Maybe this is the only 64-bit implementation of RC5?
Performance is reasonable, as you can see in this example (Ubuntu 11.04, x64):
$ time md5sum 100Mb.bin 28a8c7a11327880877f21c78b7222273 100Mb.bin real 0m0.238s user 0m0.220s sys 0m0.010s $ time openssl enc -e -aes-128-cbc -k p4ssw0rd -in 100Mb.bin -out 100Mb.aes.enc real 0m0.580s user 0m0.510s sys 0m0.060s $ time openssl enc -d -aes-128-cbc -k p4ssw0rd -in 100Mb.aes.enc -out 100Mb.aes.dec real 0m0.619s user 0m0.460s sys 0m0.150s $ md5sum 100Mb.aes.dec 28a8c7a11327880877f21c78b7222273 100Mb.aes.dec $ time ./SimpleQtRC5 -e -p p4ssw0rd -i 100Mb.bin -o 100Mb.rc5.enc real 0m1.678s user 0m1.540s sys 0m0.120s $ time ./SimpleQtRC5 -d -p p4ssw0rd -i 100Mb.rc5.enc -o 100Mb.rc5.dec real 0m2.064s user 0m1.970s sys 0m0.090s $ md5sum 100Mb.rc5.dec 28a8c7a11327880877f21c78b7222273 100Mb.rc5.dec $ ls -l 100Mb.* -rw-r--r-- 1 freke freke 104857600 2011-05-04 19:16 100Mb.aes.dec -rw-r--r-- 1 freke freke 104857632 2011-05-04 19:15 100Mb.aes.enc -rw-r--r-- 1 freke freke 104857600 2011-05-04 19:10 100Mb.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 freke freke 104857600 2011-05-04 19:19 100Mb.rc5.dec -rw-r--r-- 1 freke freke 104857634 2011-05-04 19:19 100Mb.rc5.enc
Above you can see:
- Calculating md5 sum of 100Mb-file
- Encrypting using openssl/aes-128 in 0.6s
- Decrypting using openssl/aes-128 in 0.6s
- Calculating md5sum to confirm that decryption recovered original file
- Encrypting using QT/RC5 in 1.7s
- Decrypting using QT/RC5 in 2.1s
- Calculating md5sum to confirm that decryption recovered original file
- Listing 100Mb files
The test program is quite simple to use:
$ ./SimpleQtRC5 SimpleRC5 (v0.0) USAGE: SimpleRC5 -t testfile SimpleRC5 -e OPTIONS SimpleRC5 -d OPTIONS SimpleRC5 -h OPTIONS: -k SecretFile (preferred to -p) -p Secret (default =) -i IndataFile -o OutdataFile -w32 : use 32-bit words -w64 : use 64-bit words -w : use native CPU words (default) -cbc : CBC -cfb : CFB (default) -n : no header -v : verbose
The only thing to explain is that without the header, the program can not itself figure out what options to use to decrypt (32/64 bit or cbc/cfb). The header does not reveal anything at all.
!! Please download the new and improved library !!
You can download the source: SimpleQtRC5-0.1.tgz.
If you have any questions, suggestions or complaints just let me know! I really believe the library is stable and secure, and simple to use! I might document it better if anyone cares about it.
Thanks for this 🙂
The programs performance is quite good and its really handy to use.
C++ rocks, you too….
Thanks! Great that someone found it useful. Dont hesitate to let me know if you find problems with the code. Bad encryption code is the last thing we want around… if nothing else it can destroy valuable data 😉
Would you mind releasing this under LGPL?
Or provide us a license to use it in a commercial software without us having to open our sourcecode?
(The software will not be based on the encryption algorithm (e.g. we will not implement an eccryption tool out of it) but we need it to encrypt a password that is handed off to another application. For this simple purpose QCA is to heavy for us, so we would be glad to be able to use your RC5 implementation.
Shyru – I will email you to see what we can arrange.
Thanks and easy to use!
Would you mind teach us how to decrypt AES 256bit file?
Thanks
This library has no support for the AES library.
If you need to decrypt an actual (AES encrypted) file you need two things:
The program that encrypted the file.
The key.
Theoretically, you dont need the same program, but in practice there are more things than the Algorithm that matters.
Even if it would be quite easy to add AES to my library (like 40h of work, at most), you would most likely not be able to decrypt files encrypted with another program.
Thanks for reply.
I see, the implementation of AES 256 for Qt seem only available in QCA-OSSL. But it’s really too heavy….
Thanks again~