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> It's better if you don't build crypto directly into your application at all, because you can still screw things up even if you build on Nacl. Nacl was built
by nly 12y ago
> It's better if you don't build crypto directly into your application at all, because you can still screw things up even if you build on Nacl.
Nacl was built to provide an API that is incredibly hard to screw up. That was one of djbs primary motivations. If you just need asymmetric encryption, or signing, or hashing, then it's the bees knees. These broad concepts aren't difficult to comprehend, and every developer should strive to understand and be able to use them. We shouldn't be encouraging people to be afraid... especially when things like dumb, plaintext username and password authentication is routinely implemented by developers without a second thought already.
- tptacek 12y agoNacl makes it hard to screw up the constructions. It doesn't make it hard to make invalid assumptions about what a signed encrypted blob actually means.
- illumen 12y ago+ makes it easy to add two numbers. It doesn't make it hard to make invalid assumptions about what adding two numbers together actually means.
- tptacek 12y agoNacl is a good thing. But crypto is just a tool. It's not a magic wand. People have already built vulnerable systems by making bogus assumptions about what Nacl can do.
- sarciszewski 12y agoThat's a shame :(