> How is that a problem? The problem is it has the wrong default. The equivalent in NaCl is crypto_box(), which requires the sender's private key to authentica

> How is that a problem? The problem is it has the wrong default. The equivalent in NaCl is crypto_box(), which requires the sender's private key to authenticate the message. If you really wanted anonymous messages then you could generate a new private key for each message and immediately throw it away, which gives you a much stronger signal that you're doing something unusual. What those OpenSSL functions do is generate a symmetric key, encrypt the symmetric key with the public key (to give to the recipient), and then encrypt the data with a symmetric cipher using the symmetric key. Those are each already basic primitives, so all the combined function is really doing is making it easier to do something insecure that most people would rarely actually want. It's possible to use it correctly, but it's too easy to use it incorrectly. Doing something uncommon with bad security properties should be possible but not easy.