lightweight encryption of text file

[Daniel Fetchinson]

>> I have a plain text file which I would like to protect in a very
>> simple minded, yet for my purposes sufficient, way. I'd like to
>> encrypt/convert it into a binary file in such a way that possession of
>> a password allows anyone to convert it back into the original text
>> file while not possessing the password one would only see the
>> following with the standard linux utility 'file':
>
>> What would be the simplest way to achieve this using preferably stock
>> python without 3rd party modules? If a not too complex 3rd party
>> module made it really simple that would be acceptable too.
>
> RC4 (aka ArcFour) is quite trivial to implement, and better than inventing
> your own cipher or using a Vignere:
>
> import itertools
>
> class arcfour:
>     def __init__(self, key):
> 	self.s = range(256)
> 	self.schedule(map(ord, key))
> 	self.pad = self.prng()
>
>     def swap(self, i, j):
> 	self.s[i], self.s[j] = self.s[j], self.s[i]
>
>     def schedule(self, key):
> 	j = 0
> 	for i, c in zip(xrange(256), itertools.cycle(key)):
> 	    j = (j + self.s[i] + c) % 256
> 	    self.swap(i, j)
>
>     def prng(self):
> 	i = j = 0
> 	while True:
> 	    i = (i + 1) % 256
> 	    j = (j + self.s[i]) % 256
> 	    self.swap(i, j)
> 	    yield self.s[(self.s[i] + self.s[j]) % 256]
>
>     def crypt(self, string):
> 	chars = (chr(c ^ r) for c, r in zip(map(ord, string), self.pad))
> 	return ''.join(chars)
>
> I suggest that you don't use the password itself as the key, unless you're
> sure that a low-entropy string won't be used. Instead, create an SHA hash
> (see the sha and hashlib modules) of the password and use that.

Thanks, this looks very simple too, but where is the decryption code?
Wikipedia seems to suggest that encryption and decryption are both the
same but running crypt on the output of crypt doesn't give back the
original string. So probably I'm misunderstanding something.

Cheers,
Daniel


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