Simple way to encode a string according to a passw

Question

Does Python have a built-in, simple way of encoding/decoding strings using a password?

Something like this:

>>> encode('John Doe', password = 'mypass')
'sjkl28cn2sx0'
>>> decode('sjkl28cn2sx0', password = 'mypass')
'John Doe'

So the string "John Doe" gets encrypted as 'sjkl28cn2sx0'. To get the original string, I would "unlock" that string with the key 'mypass', which is a password in my source code. I'd like this to be the way I can encrypt/decrypt a Word document with a password.

I would like to use these encrypted strings as URL parameters. My goal is obfuscation, not strong security; nothing mission critical is being encoded. I realize I could use a database table to store keys and values, but am trying to be minimalist.

Answer 1

External libraries provide secret-key encryption algorithms.

For example, the Cypher module in PyCrypto offers a selection of many encryption algorithms:

• Crypto.Cipher.AES
• Crypto.Cipher.ARC2
• Crypto.Cipher.ARC4
• Crypto.Cipher.Blowfish
• Crypto.Cipher.CAST
• Crypto.Cipher.DES
• Crypto.Cipher.DES3
• Crypto.Cipher.IDEA
• Crypto.Cipher.RC5
• Crypto.Cipher.XOR

MeTooCrypto is a Python wrapper for OpenSSL, and provides (among other functions) a full-strength general purpose cryptography library. Included are symmetric ciphers (like AES).

Answer 2

Assuming you are only looking for simple obfuscation that will obscure things from the very casual observer, and you aren't looking to use third party libraries. I'd recommend something like the Vigenere cipher. It is one of the strongest of the simple ancient ciphers.

Vigenère cipher

It's quick and easy to implement. Something like:

import base64

def encode(key, string):
    encoded_chars = []
    for i in xrange(len(string)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        encoded_c = chr(ord(string[i]) + ord(key_c) % 256)
        encoded_chars.append(encoded_c)
    encoded_string = "".join(encoded_chars)
    return base64.urlsafe_b64encode(encoded_string)

Decode is pretty much the same, except you subtract the key.

It is much harder to break if the strings you are encoding are short, and/or if it is hard to guess the length of the passphrase used.

If you are looking for something cryptographic, PyCrypto is probably your best bet, though previous answers overlook some details: ECB mode in PyCrypto requires your message to be a multiple of 16 characters in length. So, you must pad. Also, if you want to use them as URL parameters, use base64.urlsafe_b64_encode(), rather than the standard one. This replaces a few of the characters in the base64 alphabet with URL-safe characters (as it's name suggests).

However, you should be ABSOLUTELY certain that this very thin layer of obfuscation suffices for your needs before using this. The Wikipedia article I linked to provides detailed instructions for breaking the cipher, so anyone with a moderate amount of determination could easily break it.

Answer 3

Working encode/decode functions in python3 (adapted very little from qneill's answer):

def encode(key, clear):
    enc = []
    for i in range(len(clear)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        enc_c = (ord(clear[i]) + ord(key_c)) % 256
        enc.append(enc_c)
    return base64.urlsafe_b64encode(bytes(enc))

def decode(key, enc):
    dec = []
    enc = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(enc)
    for i in range(len(enc)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        dec_c = chr((256 + enc[i] - ord(key_c)) % 256)
        dec.append(dec_c)
    return "".join(dec)

Answer 4

An other implementation of @qneill code which include CRC checksum of the original message, it throw an exception if the check fail:

import hashlib
import struct
import zlib

def vigenere_encode(text, key):
    text = '{}{}'.format(text, struct.pack('i', zlib.crc32(text)))

    enc = []
    for i in range(len(text)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        enc_c = chr((ord(text[i]) + ord(key_c)) % 256)
        enc.append(enc_c)

    return base64.urlsafe_b64encode("".join(enc))


def vigenere_decode(encoded_text, key):
    dec = []
    encoded_text = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(encoded_text)
    for i in range(len(encoded_text)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        dec_c = chr((256 + ord(encoded_text[i]) - ord(key_c)) % 256)
        dec.append(dec_c)

    dec = "".join(dec)
    checksum = dec[-4:]
    dec = dec[:-4]

    assert zlib.crc32(dec) == struct.unpack('i', checksum)[0], 'Decode Checksum Error'

    return dec

Answer 5

if you want secure encryption:

for python 2, you should use keyczar http://www.keyczar.org/

for python 3, until keyczar is available, i have written simple-crypt http://pypi.python.org/pypi/simple-crypt

both these will use key strengthening which makes them more secure than most other answers here. and since they're so easy to use you might want to use them even when security is not critical...

Answer 6

The "encoded_c" mentioned in the @smehmood's Vigenere cipher answer should be "key_c".

Here are working encode/decode functions.

import base64
def encode(key, clear):
    enc = []
    for i in range(len(clear)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        enc_c = chr((ord(clear[i]) + ord(key_c)) % 256)
        enc.append(enc_c)
    return base64.urlsafe_b64encode("".join(enc))

def decode(key, enc):
    dec = []
    enc = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(enc)
    for i in range(len(enc)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        dec_c = chr((256 + ord(enc[i]) - ord(key_c)) % 256)
        dec.append(dec_c)
    return "".join(dec)