[PYTHON-CRYPTO] Existing python APIs

[Michael Ströder]

Andrew Archibald wrote:
>
> - pisces: implements SPKI.  Lives on top of amkCrypto.  Provides a whole
>     lot of interoperability and serialization functions.  Wraps yarrow.
>     What do people think of the API?  I've never used it.

IMHO it's the most Pythonic implementation of a crypto protocol.
E.g. things like RSA key classes etc. I mainly used (and patched)
the ASN.1 module for parsing X.509 certs/CRLs.

> - M2crypto: wraps openSSL.  Contains block and stream ciphers, HMACs, RSA,
>     DH, DSA.  Adds SSL and S/MIME.

I like the functionality, really feature-rich. I definitely don't
like the OpenSSL BIO interface passed through to Python by SWIG. The
BIO stuff of OpenSSL is somewhat an emulation of an object-model in
C. M2Crypto's author Ng Pheng Siong also wrote a couple of Python
wrapper classes to make it more friendly for pure Python developers
like me. ;-)

> Are any of these worth emulating?  I like amkCrypto's block and stream
> cipher interface,

I will examine that.

> and I like python's native hash interface.

It's pretty similar to the stuff JCE defines. But hashes are the
most simple thing...

Ciao, Michael.