Help needed in choosing an algorithm for Cryptographic services.

[Sebastian 'lunar' Wiesner]

[ Peter Pearson <ppearson at nowhere.invalid> ]

> On Thu, 29 May 2008 20:27:35 -0500, Larry Bates wrote:
>> abhishek wrote:
>>> Hi group, recently my employer asked me too implement encryption/
>>> decryption for secure data transfer over internet. Problem is that the
>>> client application is written using C# and the webserver where i need
>>> to store the information is developed using python.
>>> 
>>> My situation of dilemma is which cryptographic method suits me best
>>> for this purpose.
>>> 
>>> Help/Suggestions are urgently required

> Data security is a complex and difficult problem, and you are likely
> to fail in the worst possible way: implementing something that is
> weak but that you believe to be strong.  Some advice: (1) Use
> off-the-shelf products like PGP or GPG; don't write your own.

full ack.

> (2) Read Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography to get a feeling
> for the dimensions of the problem. 

While this book is most certainly worth reading, I doubt, that it is
necessary to gain in-depth knowledge of cryptography to make use of it in
your code.  

If you transfer data over SSL-connection, you should rely on them being
safe, you don't need to understand the details.  You only need to know,
what SSL can protect against, and what it can't protect against.

-- 
Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.
                                      (Rosa Luxemburg)