README.md

Recursive encryption/decryption

The benefit of this approach is simple: The original passphrase can't be brute-forced from only the encrypted result without trying all the recusrive encryptions and knowing how many recusion levels were used during encryption.

Test

echo hello | red e world | tee hello-world.enc.txt | red d world

Now the hello-world.enc.txt file is "hello" encrypted recursively using sha512-recursive digests of the "world" passphrase.

Explanation

echo hello | red e world 3

results in essentially:

hello-world.enc.txt = e(e(e("hello",sha("world")),sha(sha("world"))),sha(sha(sha("world"))))

which can be decrypted using:

cat hello-world.enc.txt | red d world 3

results in essentially:

"hello" = d(d(d(hello-world.enc.txt,sha(sha(sha("world")))),sha(sha("world"))),sha("world"))

More

This technique is strengthened further by changing the cipher algorithms based on the passphrase. It feels kinda like salting each iteration.

red

#!/bin/bash
# GitHub, this file isn't JavaScript. See the above line.

# Recursively compress stdin based on a recursive sha512'd passphrase.

# Direction: e d
c=${1:-e}

# The number of recursive steps.
n=${2:-10}

p=${3}

[ "${p}" ] || {
  read -s -p 'Passphrase: ' p >/dev/tty </dev/tty
  [ "${p}" ] || exit 1
  printf '\e[12D\e[2K' >/dev/tty
  cat | ${0} ${c} ${n} "${p}"
  exit $?
}

# For now, restrict the maximum iterations.
((n>100)) && n=100

((n<=0)) && {
  cat
  exit 0
}

# The passphrase salted with the iteration, digested on each iteration.
p=$(echo "${n}${p}" | shasum5.12 | awk '{print $1}')

# Cycle ciphers based on password checksum.
ciphers=(bf aes-256 des-ede3 cast)
w=$(echo ${p} | sum | awk -v c=${#ciphers[*]} '{print $1 % c}')
cipher=${ciphers[w]}-cbc

# For the last iteration, use base64.
((n==1)) && ascii='-a' || ascii=

exec 2>/dev/null
set -o pipefail

[ ${c} = 'd' ] && {  
  # When decrypting, push all the digested passwords before starting to decrypt.
  ${0} ${c} $[n-1] ${p} | openssl ${cipher} ${ascii} -${c} -salt -pass pass:${p}
}

[ ${c} = 'e' ] && {
  openssl ${cipher} ${ascii} -${c} -salt -pass pass:${p} | ${0} ${c} $[n-1] ${p}
}

exit $?

test-2-character.enc

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