This appears to be a design decision borrowed/inherited from git-crypt: https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt#security https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt#security T

This appears to be a design decision borrowed/inherited from git-crypt: https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt#security https://github.com/AGWA/git-crypt#security The gain is that encrypted output is deterministic (which git seems to require), with the trade-off of leaking some information (particularly that multiple encrypted ciphertexts are identical). I'm not really a crypto expert, but it seems like a better alternative might be to use AES-GCM-SIV. It is designed to allow for nonce reuse, and has the advantage of being authenticated encryption. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES-GCM-SIV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AES-GCM-SIV