Encrypt & Decrypt using PyCrypto AES 256

Question

I\'m trying to build two functions using PyCrypto that accept two parameters: the message and the key, and then encrypt/decrypt the message.

I found several links on

Answer 1

You can get a passphrase out of an arbitrary password by using a cryptographic hash function (NOT Python's builtin hash) like SHA-1 or SHA-256. Python includes support for both in its standard library:

import hashlib

hashlib.sha1("this is my awesome password").digest() # => a 20 byte string
hashlib.sha256("another awesome password").digest() # => a 32 byte string

You can truncate a cryptographic hash value just by using [:16] or [:24] and it will retain its security up to the length you specify.