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Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange (DH)

See more Diffie-Hellman Examples

Diffie-Hellman key exchange (DH) is a cryptographic protocol that allows two parties that have no prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a shared secret key.

This example demonstrates how two parties (Alice and Bob) can compute an N-bit shared secret key without the key ever being transmitted.

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const std = @import("std");
const chilkat = @import("chilkat");

pub fn main(init: std.process.Init) !void {
    const alloc = init.arena.allocator();

    // This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
    // See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

    // Create two separate instances of the DH object.
    const dh_bob = try chilkat.Dh.init();
    defer dh_bob.deinit();
    const dh_alice = try chilkat.Dh.init();
    defer dh_alice.deinit();

    // The DH algorithm begins with a large prime, P, and a generator, G.
    // These don't have to be secret, and they may be transmitted over an insecure channel.
    // The generator is a small integer and typically has the value 2 or 5.

    // The Chilkat DH component provides the ability to use known
    // "safe" primes, as well as a method to generate new safe primes.

    // This example will use a known safe prime.  Generating
    // new safe primes is a time-consuming CPU intensive task
    // and is normally done offline.

    // Bob will choose to use the 2nd of our 8 pre-chosen safe primes.
    // It is the Prime for the 2nd Oakley Group (RFC 2409) --
    // 1024-bit MODP Group.  Generator is 2.
    // The prime is: 2^1024 - 2^960 - 1 + 2^64 * { [2^894 pi] + 129093 }
    dh_bob.useKnownPrime(2);

    // The computed shared secret will be equal to the size of the prime (in bits).
    // In this case the prime is 1024 bits, so the shared secret will be 128 bytes (128 * 8 = 1024).
    // However, the result is returned as an SSH1-encoded bignum in hex string format.
    // The SSH1-encoding prepends a 2-byte count, so the result is going  to be 2 bytes
    // longer: 130 bytes.  This results in a hex string that is 260 characters long (two chars
    // per byte for the hex encoding).

    // Bob will now send P and G to Alice.
    const p = try dh_bob.getP(alloc);
    const g = dh_bob.getG();

    // Alice calls SetPG to set P and G.  SetPG checks
    // the values to make sure it's a safe prime and will
    // return false if not.
    dh_alice.setPG(p, g) catch {
        std.debug.print("P is not a safe prime\n", .{});
        return;
    };

    // Each side begins by generating an "E"
    // value.  The CreateE method has one argument: numBits.
    // It should be set to twice the size of the number of bits
    // in the session key.

    // Let's say we want to generate a 128-bit session key
    // for AES encryption.  The shared secret generated by the Diffie-Hellman
    // algorithm will be longer, so we'll hash the result to arrive at the
    // desired session key length.  However, the length of the session
    // key we'll utlimately produce determines the value that should be
    // passed to the CreateE method.

    // In this case, we'll be creating a 128-bit session key, so pass 256 to CreateE.
    // This setting is for security purposes only -- the value
    // passed to CreateE does not change the length of the shared secret
    // that is produced by Diffie-Hellman.
    // Also, there is no need to pass in a value larger
    // than 2 times the expected session key length.  It suffices to
    // pass exactly 2 times the session key length.

    // Bob generates a random E (which has the mathematical
    // properties required for DH).
    const e_bob = try dh_bob.createE(alloc, 256);

    // Alice does the same:
    const e_alice = try dh_alice.createE(alloc, 256);

    // The "E" values are sent over the insecure channel.
    // Bob sends his "E" to Alice, and Alice sends her "E" to Bob.

    // Each side computes the shared secret by calling FindK.
    // "K" is the shared-secret.

    // Bob computes the shared secret from Alice's "E":
    const k_bob = try dh_bob.findK(alloc, e_alice);

    // Alice computes the shared secret from Bob's "E":
    const k_alice = try dh_alice.findK(alloc, e_bob);

    // Amazingly, kBob and kAlice are identical and the expected
    // length (260 characters).  The strings contain the hex encoded bytes of
    // our shared secret:
    std.debug.print("Bob's shared secret:\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{k_bob});
    std.debug.print("Alice's shared secret (should be equal to Bob's)\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{k_alice});

    // To arrive at a 128-bit session key for AES encryption, Bob and Alice should
    // both transform the raw shared secret using a hash algorithm that produces
    // the size of session key desired.   MD5 produces a 16-byte (128-bit) result, so
    // this is a good choice for 128-bit AES.

    // To produce the session key:
    const crypt = try chilkat.Crypt2.init();
    defer crypt.deinit();

    crypt.setEncodingMode("hex");
    crypt.setHashAlgorithm("md5");

    const session_key = try crypt.hashStringENC(alloc, k_bob);

    std.debug.print("128-bit Session Key:\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{session_key});

    // Encrypt something...
    crypt.setCryptAlgorithm("aes");
    crypt.setKeyLength(128);
    crypt.setCipherMode("cbc");

    // Use an IV that is the MD5 hash of the session key...
    const iv = try crypt.hashStringENC(alloc, session_key);

    // AES uses a 16-byte IV:
    std.debug.print("Initialization Vector:\n", .{});
    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{iv});

    crypt.setEncodedKey(session_key, "hex");
    crypt.setEncodedIV(iv, "hex");

    // Encrypt some text:

    crypt.setEncodingMode("base64");
    const cipher_text64 = try crypt.encryptStringENC(alloc, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog");
    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{cipher_text64});

    const plain_text = try crypt.decryptStringENC(alloc, cipher_text64);

    std.debug.print("{s}\n", .{plain_text});
}