Simple insecure two-way data “obfuscation”?

Question

I\'m looking for very simple obfuscation (like encrypt and decrypt but not necessarily secure) functionality for some data. It\'s not mission critical. I need something to k

Answer 1

Using the builtin .Net Cryptography library, this example shows how to use the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;

namespace Aes_Example
{
    class AesExample
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            try
            {

                string original = "Here is some data to encrypt!";

                // Create a new instance of the Aes
                // class.  This generates a new key and initialization 
                // vector (IV).
                using (Aes myAes = Aes.Create())
                {

                    // Encrypt the string to an array of bytes.
                    byte[] encrypted = EncryptStringToBytes_Aes(original, myAes.Key, myAes.IV);

                    // Decrypt the bytes to a string.
                    string roundtrip = DecryptStringFromBytes_Aes(encrypted, myAes.Key, myAes.IV);

                    //Display the original data and the decrypted data.
                    Console.WriteLine("Original:   {0}", original);
                    Console.WriteLine("Round Trip: {0}", roundtrip);
                }

            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: {0}", e.Message);
            }
        }
        static byte[] EncryptStringToBytes_Aes(string plainText, byte[] Key,byte[] IV)
        {
            // Check arguments.
            if (plainText == null || plainText.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("plainText");
            if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
            if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
            byte[] encrypted;
            // Create an Aes object
            // with the specified key and IV.
            using (Aes aesAlg = Aes.Create())
            {
                aesAlg.Key = Key;
                aesAlg.IV = IV;

                // Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform.
                ICryptoTransform encryptor = aesAlg.CreateEncryptor(aesAlg.Key, aesAlg.IV);

                // Create the streams used for encryption.
                using (MemoryStream msEncrypt = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    using (CryptoStream csEncrypt = new CryptoStream(msEncrypt, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
                    {
                        using (StreamWriter swEncrypt = new StreamWriter(csEncrypt))
                        {

                            //Write all data to the stream.
                            swEncrypt.Write(plainText);
                        }
                        encrypted = msEncrypt.ToArray();
                    }
                }
            }


            // Return the encrypted bytes from the memory stream.
            return encrypted;

        }

        static string DecryptStringFromBytes_Aes(byte[] cipherText, byte[] Key, byte[] IV)
        {
            // Check arguments.
            if (cipherText == null || cipherText.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("cipherText");
            if (Key == null || Key.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");
            if (IV == null || IV.Length <= 0)
                throw new ArgumentNullException("Key");

            // Declare the string used to hold
            // the decrypted text.
            string plaintext = null;

            // Create an Aes object
            // with the specified key and IV.
            using (Aes aesAlg = Aes.Create())
            {
                aesAlg.Key = Key;
                aesAlg.IV = IV;

                // Create a decrytor to perform the stream transform.
                ICryptoTransform decryptor = aesAlg.CreateDecryptor(aesAlg.Key, aesAlg.IV);

                // Create the streams used for decryption.
                using (MemoryStream msDecrypt = new MemoryStream(cipherText))
                {
                    using (CryptoStream csDecrypt = new CryptoStream(msDecrypt, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))
                    {
                        using (StreamReader srDecrypt = new StreamReader(csDecrypt))
                        {

                            // Read the decrypted bytes from the decrypting stream
                            // and place them in a string.
                            plaintext = srDecrypt.ReadToEnd();
                        }
                    }
                }

            }

            return plaintext;

        }
    }
}

Answer 2

I cleaned up SimpleAES (above) for my use. Fixed convoluted encrypt/decrypt methods; separated methods for encoding byte buffers, strings, and URL-friendly strings; made use of existing libraries for URL encoding.

The code is small, simpler, faster and the output is more concise. For instance, johnsmith@gmail.com produces:

SimpleAES: "096114178117140150104121138042115022037019164188092040214235183167012211175176167001017163166152"
SimplerAES: "YHKydYyWaHmKKnMWJROkvFwo1uu3pwzTr7CnARGjppg%3d"

Code:

public class SimplerAES
{
    private static byte[] key = __Replace_Me__({ 123, 217, 19, 11, 24, 26, 85, 45, 114, 184, 27, 162, 37, 112, 222, 209, 241, 24, 175, 144, 173, 53, 196, 29, 24, 26, 17, 218, 131, 236, 53, 209 });

    // a hardcoded IV should not be used for production AES-CBC code
    // IVs should be unpredictable per ciphertext
    private static byte[] vector = __Replace_Me_({ 146, 64, 191, 111, 23, 3, 113, 119, 231, 121, 221, 112, 79, 32, 114, 156 });

    private ICryptoTransform encryptor, decryptor;
    private UTF8Encoding encoder;

    public SimplerAES()
    {
        RijndaelManaged rm = new RijndaelManaged();
        encryptor = rm.CreateEncryptor(key, vector);
        decryptor = rm.CreateDecryptor(key, vector);
        encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
    }

    public string Encrypt(string unencrypted)
    {
        return Convert.ToBase64String(Encrypt(encoder.GetBytes(unencrypted)));
    }

    public string Decrypt(string encrypted)
    {
        return encoder.GetString(Decrypt(Convert.FromBase64String(encrypted)));
    }

    public byte[] Encrypt(byte[] buffer)
    {
        return Transform(buffer, encryptor);
    }

    public byte[] Decrypt(byte[] buffer)
    {
        return Transform(buffer, decryptor);
    }

    protected byte[] Transform(byte[] buffer, ICryptoTransform transform)
    {
        MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
        using (CryptoStream cs = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
        {
            cs.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
        }
        return stream.ToArray();
    }
}

Answer 3

Just thought I'd add that I've improved Mud's SimplerAES by adding a random IV that's passed back inside the encrypted string. This improves the encryption as encrypting the same string will result in a different output each time.

public class StringEncryption
{
    private readonly Random random;
    private readonly byte[] key;
    private readonly RijndaelManaged rm;
    private readonly UTF8Encoding encoder;

    public StringEncryption()
    {
        this.random = new Random();
        this.rm = new RijndaelManaged();
        this.encoder = new UTF8Encoding();
        this.key = Convert.FromBase64String("Your+Secret+Static+Encryption+Key+Goes+Here=");
    }

    public string Encrypt(string unencrypted)
    {
        var vector = new byte[16];
        this.random.NextBytes(vector);
        var cryptogram = vector.Concat(this.Encrypt(this.encoder.GetBytes(unencrypted), vector));
        return Convert.ToBase64String(cryptogram.ToArray());
    }

    public string Decrypt(string encrypted)
    {
        var cryptogram = Convert.FromBase64String(encrypted);
        if (cryptogram.Length < 17)
        {
            throw new ArgumentException("Not a valid encrypted string", "encrypted");
        }

        var vector = cryptogram.Take(16).ToArray();
        var buffer = cryptogram.Skip(16).ToArray();
        return this.encoder.GetString(this.Decrypt(buffer, vector));
    }

    private byte[] Encrypt(byte[] buffer, byte[] vector)
    {
        var encryptor = this.rm.CreateEncryptor(this.key, vector);
        return this.Transform(buffer, encryptor);
    }

    private byte[] Decrypt(byte[] buffer, byte[] vector)
    {
        var decryptor = this.rm.CreateDecryptor(this.key, vector);
        return this.Transform(buffer, decryptor);
    }

    private byte[] Transform(byte[] buffer, ICryptoTransform transform)
    {
        var stream = new MemoryStream();
        using (var cs = new CryptoStream(stream, transform, CryptoStreamMode.Write))
        {
            cs.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
        }

        return stream.ToArray();
    }
}

And bonus unit test

[Test]
public void EncryptDecrypt()
{
    // Arrange
    var subject = new StringEncryption();
    var originalString = "Testing123!£$";

    // Act
    var encryptedString1 = subject.Encrypt(originalString);
    var encryptedString2 = subject.Encrypt(originalString);
    var decryptedString1 = subject.Decrypt(encryptedString1);
    var decryptedString2 = subject.Decrypt(encryptedString2);

    // Assert
    Assert.AreEqual(originalString, decryptedString1, "Decrypted string should match original string");
    Assert.AreEqual(originalString, decryptedString2, "Decrypted string should match original string");
    Assert.AreNotEqual(originalString, encryptedString1, "Encrypted string should not match original string");
    Assert.AreNotEqual(encryptedString1, encryptedString2, "String should never be encrypted the same twice");
}

Answer 4

The namespace System.Security.Cryptography contains the TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider and RijndaelManaged classes

Don't forget to add a reference to the System.Security assembly.

Answer 5

I changed this:

public string ByteArrToString(byte[] byteArr)
{
    byte val;
    string tempStr = "";
    for (int i = 0; i <= byteArr.GetUpperBound(0); i++)
    {
        val = byteArr[i];
        if (val < (byte)10)
            tempStr += "00" + val.ToString();
        else if (val < (byte)100)
            tempStr += "0" + val.ToString();
        else
            tempStr += val.ToString();
    }
    return tempStr;
}

to this:

    public string ByteArrToString(byte[] byteArr)
    {
        string temp = "";
        foreach (byte b in byteArr)
            temp += b.ToString().PadLeft(3, '0');
        return temp;
    }

Answer 6

I know you said you don't care about how secure it is, but if you chose DES you might as well take AES it is the more up-to-date encryption method.