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Frequently Asked Questions about RbNaCl
Projects Using RbNaCl

Easier-to-Use Cryptography*

Secret-key Encryption

Think of SecretBox like a safe: you can put information inside of it, and anyone with the combination can open it.

RDoc: Authenticated secret-key encryption: RbNaCl::SecretBox (alias to RbNaCl::SecretBoxes::XSalsa20Poly1305)

Public-key Encryption

Box works similarly to GPG: anyone can publish a public key, and if you have someone's public key, you can put messages into the box, but once closed, only the holder of the private key can open it.

Crypto::Box: Authenticated public-key encryption
Crypto::PrivateKey: Private keys for Crypto::Box
Crypto::PublicKey: Public keys for Crypto::Box

Digital Signatures

In the real world, signatures help uniquely identify people because everyone's signature is unique. Digital signatures work similarly in that they are unique to holders of a private key, but unlike real world signatures, digital signatures are unforgeable.

Crypto::SigningKey: Create digital signatures
Crypto::VerifyKey: Verify digital signatures

HMAC

HMAC provides hash-based [message authentication codes]((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_authentication_code), the symmetric equivalent to digital signatures. Anyone who knows a particular secret value can use that value to generate MACs or verify the authenticity of a MAC for a given message.

Crypto::HMAC::SHA256: Create 256-bit MACs with SHA256
Crypto::HMAC::SHA512256: Create 256-bit MACs with SHA512

Hash Functions

Cryptographic hash functions compute a secure, fixed-length output from an arbitrarily long input. These functions are designed to keep the actual data being hashed confidential.