Thomas DuBuisson wrote:
[1] http://tommd.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/a-haskell-api-for-cryptographic-algori...
class (Binary p, Serialize p) => AsymCipher p where generateKeypair :: RandomGen g => g -> BitLength -> Maybe ((p,p),g) encryptAsym :: p -> B.ByteString -> B.ByteString decryptAsym :: p -> B.ByteString -> B.ByteString asymKeyLength :: p -> BitLength
Regarding AsymCipher: Some algorithms do not lend themselves to encryption/decryption or have special properties which differentiate their use in enc/dec an signing/verifying. I propose the following two additions for the class: signAsym :: p -> B.ByteString -> B.ByteString verifyAsym :: p -> B.ByteString -> Bool This way algorithms can leave parts undefined which do not apply to them or hide their different behaviour. Another possibility would be a split of AsymCipher into AsymCipherEnc (which is just like the old AsymCipher) and AsymCipherSig for Signatures. Textbook-RSA is special, since it can implement both classes with a minimum of effort, but a clean separation would be nice (and there wouldn't be that many undefined functions). Another thing: A central interface to get the output of a PRNG would be nice, preferably not constrained to Int like RandomGen. MonadRandom has with getRandomR a nice function, since it takes an interval (possibly using type Integer), which is very comfortable for asymmetric cipher usage. A central interface could spare AsymCipher-implementers the effort of duplicated work - we are lazy after all. ;-) Also: Sorry for entering this late into the discussion! Have a nice day, Marcel -- Marcel Fourné OpenPGP-Key-ID: 0x74545C72 A good library is preferable to a tool, except when you just need that one tool.