lib25519: Intro

lib25519

lib25519 is a microlibrary for the X25519 encryption system and the Ed25519 signature system, both of which use the Curve25519 elliptic curve. Curve25519 is the fastest curve in TLS 1.3, and the only curve in Wireguard, Signal, and many other applications (see Nicolai Brown's page https://ianix.com/pub/curve25519-deployment.html).

lib25519 has a very simple stateless API based on the SUPERCOP API, with wire-format inputs and outputs, providing functions that directly match the central cryptographic operations in X25519 and Ed25519:

- `lib25519_dh_keypair(pk,sk)`: X25519 key generation
- `lib25519_dh(k,pk,sk)`: shared-secret generation
- `lib25519_sign_keypair(pk,sk)`: Ed25519 key generation
- `lib25519_sign(sm,&smlen,m,mlen,sk)`: signing
- `lib25519_sign_open(m,&mlen,sm,smlen,pk)`: verification + message recovery

Internally, lib25519 includes implementations designed for performance on various CPUs, implementations designed to work portably across CPUs, and automatic run-time selection of implementations.

lib25519 is intended to be called by larger multi-function libraries, including libraries in other languages via FFI. The idea is that lib25519 will take responsibility for the details of X25519/Ed25519 computation, including optimization, timing-attack protection, and eventually verification, freeing up the calling libraries to concentrate on application-specific needs such as protocol integration. Applications can also call lib25519 directly.

Latest release: 20241004.

Version: This is version 2024.10.04 of the "Intro" web page.