On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 10:57:35PM -0700, Kelly Jones wrote: > Are there any secure openssl symmetric encryption routines that > *don't* use a salt? > > Is it secure to use a random-but-fixed salt (openssl enc -S salt)? > > "man enc" says "This option [-salt] should ALWAYS be used [...]" > > Reason I ask: I was using this command to backup files using > compression/encryption: > > bzip2 -k -c original | openssl enc -bf -pass file:passfile > encfile > > and was surprised that doing this to identical files yielded different > results. I then realized "openssl enc" randomly(?) chooses a salt if > you don't supply one.
So? It will still decrypt properly if you give the right password! > I want my backups encrypted, but I also want identical files to > encrypt identically. Thoughts? You could use the -S option and specify a constant salt. It might make the encrypted materials easier to break, though. You can generate a random salt with openssl as well: openssl rand 8 | hexdump -e '"0x" 2 "%X" "\n"' (According to [http://www.openssl.org/docs/crypto/EVP_BytesToKey.html], the salt is 8 bytes.) Or you can use the -nosalt option. But as explained in [http://www.openssl.org/docs/apps/enc.html], using a random salt by default is a design decision because: "Without the -salt option it is possible to perform efficient dictionary attacks on the password". That doesn't sound good, does it? Alternatively, ports like security/ccrypt hash your password to make a key. They don't require a separate salt. If you are using a (e.g. USB connected) disk as backup, use geli(8) to encrypt the whole disk instead of encrypting each file separately. Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725)
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