2 Way encryption for password

Ruby
1

Hi

I’m creating a password database (a dangerous thing to do, I know!)
normally I’d hash the passwords for storage in the DB, but in this
case I need to be able to also reverse them to their original state.
I’m familiar with the digest module, but of course it isn’t of use
here. I didn’t see anything obvious on my Google travels. Could
anyone suggest how to perform encryption in ruby, in particular based
on a rails application…?

Many thanks

Gabriel

2

Gabriel D. wrote:

Many thanks

Gabriel

Have a look here:
Crypto in ruby - Stake Ventures (OpenSSL
contains many encryption algorithms), and you might want to browse this
list:
http://raa.ruby-lang.org/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Cryptography

Hope this helps,
Dan

3

On Sun, Sep 02, 2007 at 07:33:51PM +0900, Gabriel D. wrote:

Hi

I’m creating a password database (a dangerous thing to do, I know!)
normally I’d hash the passwords for storage in the DB, but in this
case I need to be able to also reverse them to their original state.
I’m familiar with the digest module, but of course it isn’t of use
here. I didn’t see anything obvious on my Google travels. Could
anyone suggest how to perform encryption in ruby, in particular based
on a rails application…?

You might want to check out keybox and see if it would meet your needs.

http://keybox.rubyforge.org/

Its a pure ruby password database utilizing the SSL libraries for
encryption. It ships as a commandline application but it is fully
utilizable via its API.

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

enjoy,

-jeremy

4

On 2 Sep 2007, at 12:47, Dan Z. wrote:

Gabriel

Have a look here: http://stakeventures.com/articles/2005/06/16/
crypto-in-ruby (OpenSSL contains many encryption algorithms), and
you might want to browse this list: http://raa.ruby-lang.org/
cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Cryptography

Hope this helps,
Dan

Thank you very much, never thought of using the SSL library!

Regards

Gabe

5

Gabriel D. wrote:

Hi

I’m creating a password database (a dangerous thing to do, I know!)
normally I’d hash the passwords for storage in the DB, but in this
case I need to be able to also reverse them to their original state.
I’m familiar with the digest module, but of course it isn’t of use
here. I didn’t see anything obvious on my Google travels. Could
anyone suggest how to perform encryption in ruby, in particular based
on a rails application…?

Many thanks

Gabriel

Small nitpick about terminology: encryption is per definition 2 way,
what is often wrongly refered to as 1 way encryption is normally
cryptographic hashing (also see the note
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_encryption: “Note that encryption
is, by definition, reversible. Hence, the term one-way encryption is
slightly incorrect in a sense.”)

Regards
Stefan