libmcleece

A command line tool and C interface to encrypt/decrypt files using the Classic McEliece "post-quantum", code-based asymmetric key exchange scheme.

libmcleece's default behavior is to use hybrid key exchange -- using the Classic McEliece KEM, and libsodium's crypto_box_seal (x25519) -- to generate a secret key for a libsodium crypto_box (xsalsa20poly1305).

The actual McEliece implementation is from the Classic McEliece NIST submission, Round-4: https://classic.mceliece.org/nist.html

The submission is not a standard yet!

Build

• Dependencies:
  • libssl-dev
  • libsodium-dev

cmake .
make -j4 install

By default, build products (the library, the headers, and the cli) are installed into the project's dist/ subdirectory. To install to a different directory, e.g. /usr, modify the cmake step:

cmake . -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr

Basic usage

1. generate a public/private key pair.

• with the cli:

mcleececli keypair --key-path=/tmp/key

• this will generate /tmp/key.sk and /tmp/key.pk. The secret key will be password protected (there will be a prompt) -- keep it secret! Keep it safe!

• with the C api:

mcleece_keypair_to_file(
    "/tmp/key", 8, // length of "/tmp/key"
    "password", 8,  // length of "password" -- I recommend a stronger password than "password"
    mcleece_MODE_CRYPTO_BOX
)

2. encrypt a message for a specific public key (only the corresponding secret key will be able to decrypt it):

• with the cli:

mcleececli encrypt /path/to/srcfile --key-path=/tmp/key > encoded.bin

• encryption will need /tmp/key.pk to exist in the above example.

• with the C api:

mcleece_encrypt_file(
    "/tmp/key", 8,
    "/path/to/srcfile", 16,
    "encoded.bin", 11,
    mcleece_MODE_CRYPTO_BOX
)

3. decrypt a message

• with the cli:

mcleececli decrypt encoded.bin --key-path=/tmp/key > decoded_file_path

• decryption will expect both /tmp/key.sk and /tmp/key.pk to exist in the above example -- and will also prompt for the password for /tmp/key.sk.

• with the C api:

mcleece_decrypt_file(
    "/tmp/key", 8,
    "password", 8,
    "encoded.bin", 11,
    "decoded_file_path", 17,
    mcleece_MODE_CRYPTO_BOX
)

Advanced usage

In addition to the file-level APIs described above, there are also APIs to match the libsodium crypto_box_seal API:

int mcleece_crypto_box_keypair(unsigned char* pubk, unsigned char* secret);
int mcleece_crypto_box_seal(unsigned char* ciphertext_out, const unsigned char* msg, unsigned msg_length, unsigned char* recipient_pubk);
int mcleece_crypto_box_seal_open(unsigned char* decrypted_out, const unsigned char* ciphertext, unsigned ciphertext_length, unsigned char* recipient_pubk, unsigned char* recipient_secret);

int mcleece_simple_keypair(unsigned char* pubk, unsigned char* secret);
int mcleece_simple_encrypt(unsigned char* ciphertext_out, const unsigned char* msg, unsigned msg_length, unsigned char* recipient_pubk);
int mcleece_simple_decrypt(unsigned char* decrypted_out, const unsigned char* ciphertext, unsigned ciphertext_length, unsigned char* recipient_secret);

Each set of APIs is meant to be used independently. That is, a keypair from mcleece_crypto_box_keypair will not work with mcleece_simple calls, and vice versa.

Explanation:

• mcleece_crypto_box functions are modified libsodium crypto_box_seal operations. This means that even if something is awry with libmcleece's PQC, theoretically the encrypted payload will still be as secure as crypto_box_seal is. (that is: pretty good, unless your adversary has a powerful quantum computer)
  • mcleece_crypto_box is the default behavior for the cli.
• mcleece_crypto_box keypairs are larger, since they contain two keypairs. Specifically, the x25519 (public/private) key bytes are prepended in front of the Classic McEliece key bytes.
• mcleece_simple functions do not use x25519 -- the random secret is only protected by Classic McEliece.

C++ API

It is not (yet?) collected in a single-header, but the core of libmcleece are a handful of header-only C++ libraries. These can also be used, though I'm not sure how stable the API is ...