Hi groups i am trying to encrypt and decrypt back a block of data .I am using the standard encrypt(char block[64], int edflag) function. I have written a small program which should do this according to the man page.the program looks like

#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <crypt.h>

int main(void)
{
const char *key = "keyusedtoencrypt";
char txt[64]="myblockofdata";

printf("Before encrypting");
printf("txt is %s",txt);
printf("\n");
setkey(key);

printf("After encrypting");
encrypt(txt, 0);
printf("txt is %s",txt);
printf("\n");


printf("After decrypting");
encrypt(txt, 1);
printf("txt is %s",txt);
printf("\n");
return 0;
}


but this program does not display any thing except the string before encrypting.Can u suggest me what to do and how to proceed. According to the manpage on encrypt it just says if edflag is 0 it encrypts and if edflag is 1 it decrypts and i even want to know what does this mean void setkey(const char *key). The key parameter used here is an array of bytes, having each byte the numerical value 1 or 0. Does this mean that the key parameter should contain only 0's and 1's.I would be very thankful if you can answer me. If this is not the proper group can you please direct me to a proper group.

Thanks in advance.

Hey, I was working on an encryption program earlier this week. Try the following, they helped me....


instead of char key*; use char key[64];

clear the buffer:

bzero(&key, sizeof(key));

then put in your key"

#include <string.h>

strcat(key, "thisismystring");

I got a feeling just changing *key to key will work, but the rest are safeguards I used for stupid memory and null character problems I always seem to run into. Your key can be anything, not just 1's or 0's. I couldnt compile your program properly...... so let me know if this works for you.

-GSD

The encrypt/decrypt actually take an array of bits, not of bytes (ie, it is a 64 bit encryption block). The bits are stored in bytes (not packed). Your code was working, but the encryption ignored the high order bits, so the results at each stage consisted just of 'characters' 0 and 1. When you printed these, nothing was shown, because character 1 is unprintable and character 0 is the end of string.

Incidentally, you also have a bug in the assigment to the key. You have a pointer to a character array that is shorter than 64, so the fetch of the key will run off the end of the array.

Here is a changed version of your code:
Incidentally, you should only use this single DES encryption for low security applications (because the key length is relatively short). You can get improved security with the same library calls by implementing triple-DES. Also, if you are encrypting multiple blocks, have a look at cbc_crypt.

neonsignal, please don't necropost. We aren't too fond of zombie threads around here. Anyone wishing to discuss the code generously provided by neonsignal please use this thread.