NetCrypto : About

NetCrypto is the first of three packages designed to reimplement crypto algorithms and hopefully take over from OpenSSL.

NetCrypto delivers a framework for algorithms of all kinds. This framework may remotely remind you of OpenSSL's EVP layer. It's extensible by allowing a programmer to write a set of algorithm functions corresponding to a class. If the programmer creates his or her own class of algorithms, a separate API should be provided, and is easily supported by the general framework.

NetCrypto allows any algorithm to be implemented as separate shared libraries, in a way that may remotely remind you of OpenSSL's ENGINE framework (it actually carries the same name), but is much simpler and much more integrated into the algorithm framework.

NetCrypto is the only of the three packages that is actually implemented, and carries a few built-in algorithms (AES, MD5, SHA1 and Base64). Basically, the following parts are more or less written in stone:

1. CIPHER, the symmetric crypto algorithm class.
2. PKCIPHER, the asymmetric crypto algorithm class.
3. DIGEST, the hash algorithm class.
4. RANDOM, the random number algorithm class.
5. TRANSPORT, the transport encoding algorithm class.

Ongoing development is currently done to parametrise algorithm classes, algorithms, keys and operations. This was prompted by the development of the PKCIPHER class of algorithms, which are highly paratrised, or at least need parameters to handle keys.

Additionally, functions to handle generic information are currently being designed and implemented, and will primarly be used to store and load private and public keys on and from files or other key storages.

Once, NetCrypto included some useful utility functions: hash table, string, vector, rw thread locks, memory handlers and engine loaders. This got extended with status code stuff and programs to convert status code files to C source. At that point, I realised these utilities are more generally usable than just for NetCrypto, so they have moved to a libary of their own, called LPlib. It's heavily used by NetCrypto.