Source URL: https://codeberg.org/ezcrypt/ezcrypt
Source: Hacker News
Title: Show HN: Ezcrypt – A file encryption tool (simple, strong, public domain)
Feedly Summary: Comments
AI Summary and Description: Yes
Summary: The provided text describes “ezcrypt,” a robust file encryption tool notable for its strong cryptographic features, user-friendly interface, and high-level security measures against various attack vectors. This tool’s architecture and implementation techniques offer vital insights into modern practices for secure file management and encryption, particularly relevant for compliance and security professionals.
Detailed Description:
The text details ezcrypt, a file encryption tool designed to provide strong file protection through a user-friendly command-line interface. Here’s a breakdown of its significant features and functionalities:
– **Ease of Use**:
– Utilizes a familiar command-line interface similar to commonplace tools (e.g., gzip).
– Simple passphrase-based encryption/decryption without the requirement of cryptographic keys.
– **Strong Cryptography**:
– Offers resistance against cryptanalytic attacks with four layers of encryption, each utilizing a 256-bit key.
– Produces a total key space of 2^1024, making brute-force attacks impractical.
– **Advanced Security Features**:
– High-cost key derivation function that increases the time required for passphrase attacks, configurable up to several minutes on a 5 GHz CPU core.
– Cache-hard algorithms prevent efficient GPU-based brute-force attacks.
– Utilizes strong salts to thwart precomputed rainbow table attacks.
– **Decryption Strategy**:
– The decryption process does not reveal whether the passphrase is correct, requiring attackers to infer correctness from decrypted data, thereby enhancing security.
– **Portability and Compatibility**:
– Built in portable C11, working across multiple operating systems (Linux, macOS, Windows, FreeBSD) and CPU architectures.
– Free and open-source software, encouraging transparency and community collaboration.
– **Installation and Usage**:
– Clearly outlines installation prerequisites, building procedures, and testing in a Docker environment.
– Provides example commands for encrypting and decrypting files.
– **Encryption Methodology**:
– Employs a multi-layered encryption approach using AES, ChaCha, Twofish, and Serpent ciphers with unique initialization vectors for added security.
– The generation of salts and initialization vectors from system-level entropy ensures that identical files encrypted with the same passphrase result in different ciphertexts.
This tool exemplifies modern techniques in file encryption, highlighting the importance of strong, user-friendly cryptographic solutions for safeguarding sensitive data and complying with regulatory requirements. Its features are particularly relevant for security professionals aiming to integrate advanced encryption practices into their security frameworks.