[aerogear-dev] JavaScript Crypto

Kris Borchers kris at redhat.com
Mon Sep 23 14:01:52 EDT 2013


On Sep 23, 2013, at 12:40 PM, Kris Borchers <kris at redhat.com> wrote:

> 
> On Sep 20, 2013, at 10:05 AM, Bruno Oliveira <bruno at abstractj.org> wrote:
> 
>> Good morning slackland, following with the plan I started a simple draft
>> for JavaScript (https://github.com/abstractj/cryptoparty-js) we have
>> several alternatives outside there the most popular are Crypto-js
>> (https://code.google.com/p/crypto-js/) and the Stanford crypto library
>> (http://crypto.stanford.edu/sjcl/).
>> 
>> Before I finish the whole implementation I have some questions:
>> 
>> - Currently crypto-js doesn't have support for GCM or ECC, but sjcl has.
>> That's the reason why my choice was sjcl instead of crypto-js, but if
>> you have another good alternative,  let me know.
> 
> +1 for sjcl if you think it offers everything we need
>> 
>> - Create wrappers or not? If you read the unit tests at first glance (at
>> least for me) looks like is too much. Most part of developers are
>> looking for security by default.
> 
> +1 I would like us to provide methods like encrypt or decrypt which use default values which we choose because we have researched and feel they are the best option for devs.
>> My idea is not to hide the library, but
>> provide a simple interface like:
>> 
>> Crypto crypto = new Crypto;
>> ciphertext = crypto. encrypt("blah");
>> crypto.decrypt(ciphertext);
> 
> I agree with this syntax in spirit but not execution. ;) JS doesn't have types like Crypto crypto, just var crypto. I would also prefer to follow the pattern we use in the rest of AeroGear.js to allow for instantiation without the use of the `new` keyword'. You can see the source of the other modules or ping me for details.

Now that I think about it, if this is just for encryption and decryption, I think this would look better and be more user friendly in AeroGear.core. That way, a user doesn't even have to instantiate and object, they just use our shortcut methods to call into sjcl. For example:

AeroGear.encrypt("blah");
AeroGear.decrypt( cipherText );

Those should be really easy to implement too and that will keep the size of the library way down. :)
>> 
>> Advanced users looking for another kind of algorithm/implementation or
>> whatever would still be able to make use of the plain and straight
>> crypto library.
> 
> +1 and we should provide examples at least in the docs
>> 
>> - What is the best way to package this library? Bower?
> 
> If we're going to create some sort of wrapper object then it would just be part of AeroGear.js and by doing that would be packaged and available via Bower.
>> 
>> Thoughts?
> 
> Great start and great thoughts!
>> 
>> -- 
>> abstractj
>> 
>> 
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> 
> 
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