[PYTHON-CRYPTO] PyCrypto Draft: Proposal 2001-02-18

[Andrew Archibald]

On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 09:30:53AM +0100, Michael Str?der wrote:

> Actually it's PyCrypto.getInstance(). I will just provide an extra
> PyCrypto.getClass() to make everyone happy.

Thank you.

> Andrew Archibald wrote:
> > In your algorithm categories, is "Ciphers" supposed to cover both
> > symmetric and asymmetric algorithms?
>
> Yes. But it's just the base class. Separate derived classes
> AsymmetricCipher(Cipher) and SymmetricCipher(Cipher) are defined.

Hmm.  Well, I guess we're going to define that part of the API later, but
I'm not sure I see what parts of the interface aymmetric ciphers share with
symmetric ciphers.

> >  Is "Hashes" supposed to cover
> > both keyed and unkeyed hashes?
>
> Yes. Feel free to give me reasons to separate it. Note: I focused on
> the load mechanism.

No, that's good.

> > If we provide a registerImplementation method, we should also provide
> > an unregisterImplementation method --- If I disintall openSSL because
> > it has a security hole, all my Python applications shouldn't start
> > dying.
>
> I don't know how to do that. If your applications are running and
> were using OpenSSL it seems unpossible for me to deinstall OpenSSL
> without messing up the applications.

Well, actually what I meant was this:

Suppose I have a running system, wth a bunch of applications that work.
But it's too slow so I install openSSL as the default implementation.  Then
they find a buffer overflow in openSSL, so I de-install it.  My
applications should not fail the next time I start them.  In other words,
openSSL should be removed from the listing of possible implementations.

Thanks,
Andrew