Crypto-API Released

Crypto-API (hackage, haddock) 0.0.0.1 is now on Hackage.

Crypto-API is a generic interface for cryptographic operations, platform independent quality Entropy, property tests and known-answer tests (KATs) for common algorithms, and a basic benchmark infrastructure. Maintainers of hash and cipher implementations are encouraged to add instances for the classes defined in Crypto.Classes. Crypto users are similarly encouraged to use the interfaces defined in the Classes module.

Previous blogs on crypto-api have discussed its design and the RNG interface. These were to aid design discussion, so note the code there won’t work without minor changes.

Example: Hashes

An example class instance:

 instance Hash MD5Context MD5Digest where
        outputLength = Tagged 128
        blockLength  = Tagged 512
        initialCtx   = md5InitialContext
        updateCtx    = md5Update
        finalize     = md5Finalize

The hash user can remain agnostic about which type of hash is used:

 authMessage :: Hash ctx dgst => B.ByteString -> MacKey -> dgst -> Bool
 authMessage msg k = (==) (hmac' k msg)

 hashFile :: Hash c d => FilePath -> IO d
 hashFile = liftM hash L.readFile

Example: Block Cipher

Users of block cipher instances probably want to use Crypto.Modes:

 import Crypto.Classes
 import Crypto.Modes (cbc)
 import Data.Serialize (encode)

 cipherMsgAppendIV :: (BlockCipher k) => k -> B.ByteString -> IO B.ByteString,
 cipherMsgAppendIV msg = do
     iv <- getIVIO
     return $ B.append (encode iv) (cbc k iv msg)

Example RNG

Its easy to get a DRBG (aka PRNG) that can be used for generating seed material for keys, building asymmetric keys, obtaining initialization vectors, nonces, or many other uses. See Crypto.Random (which users System.Crypto.Random for entropy):

newGenIO :: CryptoRandomGen g => IO g
genBytes :: (CryptoRandomGen g) => g -> ByteLength -> Either GenError (ByteString, g)
getIV :: (CryptoRandomGen g, BlockCipher k) => g -> Either GenError (IV k, g)
buildKeyPair :: CryptoRandomGen g => g -> BitLength -> Maybe ((p, p), g)

Tests

A quick peek in the Test.Crypto module will show you that testing is decent (particularly for AES) and getting better all the time.

Given a BlockCipher instance the entire test code for an AES implementation is:

-- Omitting hack-job instances for SimpleAES in this snippet
 main = do
         ts <- makeAESTests (AESKey $ B.replicate 16 0)
         runTests ts

This automatically reads in hundreds of NIST Known Answer Tests (KATs) and checks the implementation. A lesser infrastructure exists for testing Hashes. Cipher property tests are still needed.

Example: Benchmarking

As with tests, benchmarking is quite simple:

 import Data.Digest.Pure.MD5
 import Benchmark.Crypto
 import Criterion.Main

 main = defaultMain [benchmarkHash (undefined :: MD5Digest) "pureMD5"]

Closing

So please, if you maintain a hash, cipher, or other cryptographic primitive please add instances for the crypto-api classes. If you need these primitives then consider using the crypto-api interfaces, allowing you to remain algorithm and implementation agnostic in all your low level code.

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