Vision

RustyShield seeks to establish the Rust language self-sufficency by offering an API that is fully compatible with Rust's core library , although not restricted to it. RustyShield aims to provide a reliable, user-friendly, standards-compliant, and platform-agnostic suite of encryption tools.

How To Use

See the implementation documentation for examples.

Testing against NIST Test Vectors

All NIST-approved and published algorithms implemented in RustyShield undergo thorough testing against the respective NIST test vectors. Such rigorous testing guarantees the correctness and reliability of the implementations, offering a robust security foundation for any application built using RustyShield.

RoadMap

1. The initial objective of RustyShield is to port all OpenSSL algorithms, except SSL and TLS, to the Rust ecosystem.
2. Following the port, RustyShield will continue to expand and incorporate additional cryptographic algorithms.
3. Although the current implementations are not the fastest, there are considerable room for improvement. There will probably a competitive performance boost once the SIMD module stabilizes;
4. The rs_shield eventually will provide an optional CLI binary to provide check-summing, certificate generation, random number generation and other cryptographic utilities.

After that the plan will be to implement some cryptocurrencies hashing algorithms like Equihash, Ethereum's Keccak-256 and others.

Why This Project?

The benefits of RustyShield include:

• Minimal Dependencies and Supply Chain Security: By relying solely on Rust's core library, RustyShield minimizes the risk of dependency-related issues and provides an increased level of supply chain security. Trust is only required in the Rust core library team;
• No alloc extern crate and Platform-Agnostic: RustyShield avoids the alloc crate, enabling it to function without assuming the host has a heap allocator and enabling more embedded applications and kernel-level use saces. Additionally, leveraging Rust's libcore ensures cross-platform reliability, reducing complexity for the end-user;
• Consolidated Design Pattern: By adhering to the Hash, Hasher, and BuildHasher design pattern from Rust's core library, users can interchangeably use any algorithm with a basic understanding of these traits;
• Ecosystem Self-Sufficiency: The project strengthens the Rust ecosystem's self-sufficiency by relying on its own implementations, reducing reliance on external variables through FFI calls.

Philosophy

Inspired by the Unix philosophy, but adapting to the purpose of this project:

1. Do One Thing Well: Each implementation should focus on a single responsibility. If responsibilities diverge, a new crate should be created.
2. Avoid Dependency Breakage: Changing implementations should not break dependencies. If new traits are required, they should benefit all project implementations.
3. Self-Support: Implementations should be able to function solely with Rust's libcore and be backward compatible with it.
4. Clarity Over Efficiency: Clear, understandable code is prioritized over highly optimized but obscure solutions.

Supported Algorithms

It includes a library, rs_shield, along with a collection of algorithm-specific crates that cater to various aspects of cryptographic processes, such as hashing functions, cipher functions, and public key functions.

rs_shield: This is the main library crate of the RustyShield project. As of now, it serves as a wrapper, offering the convenience of including all the underlying cryptographic algorithm-specific crates as a single dependency. This eliminates the need to manage multiple dependencies individually. Future versions of rs_shield are expected to extend beyond serving as a wrapper and will introduce more direct functionalities, including checksumming, certificate generation, and other cryptographic utilities.

Hashing Functions: These are one-way functions that take an input (or 'message') and return a fixed-size string of bytes. The output, typically a 'digest', is unique to each unique input. It is practically impossible to regenerate the original input value from the digest. Examples of such hashing algorithms provided by RustyShield include SHA-1, Keccak, and MD5.

Cipher Functions: These are algorithms for performing encryption and decryption, which are fundamental to ensuring the confidentiality of information. A cipher function takes a plaintext input and a secret key to produce a ciphertext output. The process is reversible using the same key. Some examples of cipher algorithms provided in RustyShield include AES, Blowfish, and Camellia.

Public Key Functions: These are cryptographic algorithms that use a pair of keys for encryption and decryption processes: a public key, which is shared freely, and a private key, which is kept secret. The sender uses the recipient's public key for encryption, and the recipient uses their private key for decryption. Public key functions encompass both encryption algorithms and digital signature algorithms. Some of the public key algorithms offered by RustyShield include RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and DSA.

graph LR

    subgraph RustyShield["RustyShield"]
        rs_shield["rs_shield"]
        HashingFunctions["Hashing Functions"]
        Ciphers["Cipher Functions"]
        PublicKey["Public Key Functions"]
    end

    rs_shield -->|Provides| HashingFunctions
    rs_shield -->|Provides| Ciphers
    rs_shield -->|Provides| PublicKey

The detailed current state of the project is presented as follows, using the format: [link to its documentation] - [link to its crates.io page].

Contributing

Contributions are very much welcomed from everyone.

If you have a suggestion of an algorithm that you want to see included in this project, please open an issue proposing it.

To contribute, please follow the contribution guidelines.

Code of Conduct

The participation of each member of the Rust community is valued, and everyone is expected to have an enjoyable and fulfilling experience. For this reason, all participants, maintainers, and contributors must abide by the Code of Conduct.

License

RustyShield is licensed under GPL-2.0-only.

In plain English, this means you are free to use, modify, and distribute the software, provided that any modification must also be licensed under GPL-2.0-only. Or, if more convenient, for a modification that is an improvement and conforms to the contribution guidelines to bring it to the project.