------------------------------------------------ On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 10:54:12 -0600, "Dan Muey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello list, > > I am looking into being able to encrypt, symetrically, a file, text, images, > hopefully > basically any type of file binary or ascii and save it to disc. > > then I need to be able to unencypt it to view it. > I've looked into the Digest::MD5 and Crypt::Blowfish modules a bit. > In general the above are pieces of a larger puzzle, that I would suggest avoiding directly. As a good starting point I would point you in the direction of OpenPGP, in general the GnuPG implementation of it. This is a validated and popular encryption system, that is free, both beer and speech. Conveniently there are also 4 Perl modules built as either an interface to the gnupg executable or as a "pure" Perl replacement of that program. > Ok so here's my questions :: > > Is there a way to store some file info in the encrypted file? > (Like Content-type and original name) > > For instance say I have a gif encrypted as file1.encrypt. > It would be nice to have a script that could unencypt it, see that > it was a gif and then display it in a browser with the appropriate > headers, IE "Content-type: image/gif\n\n". > I believe (because it has caused us problems :-)) that the gnupg program stores the original file name, and may provide a means for accessing further information about the file. > Or original file name so you could unencrypt it and write it to file with the > original name? > See above. > Any advice on the pros and cons of the different encyption related modules? Two of the modules I alluded to above we were successful at testing in part of our system (though we ended up not being able to use any of them for reasons unrelated to their abilities). They are: Crypt::OpenPGP - Written in Perl using numerous other Perl modules to simulate OpenPGP (with a gnupg compatibility setting) GnuPG::Interface - An elegant implementation of calling gnupg from the command line, requires gnupg to be installed on the local system. Two other modules exist, one of which uses a deprecated feature of gnupg that we had to avoid (and should probably be avoided and is replaced by the module mentioned above), the other failed to install because of a dependency problem, one we specifically wanted to avoid. > Experience, advice , etcc.. > > I know this will vary betwwen modules but how would I go about handling ascii files > vs binary files? > This does vary I would imagine, though any package should handle them in such a way that it is hidden from you (aka nothing you should worry about). > Sorry if this is too vague, I'm really really new to doing this with entire files. > Any pointers to resources would be appreciated too. > http://www.gnupg.org is probably a good place to start. It is available for most platforms. gnupg also integrates well with other applications, such as mozilla, other mail clients, etc. There is also a 'crypto' Perl mailing list specifically for this topic, though it is low traffic. http://www.openpgp.org/ Let me know if you have any questions, etc. I am definitely not an encryption expert, and have only dealt with 2 forms of encryption, one of which is old, unsupported, and generally beyond its time (we still have to support it though, grr..) and OpenPGP, I am sure there are other good encryption systems out there as well. http://danconia.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
