DESCRIPTION Maybe you have a web application and you need to store some session data at the client side (in a cookie or hidden form fields) but you don't want the user to be able to mess with the data. Maybe you want to save secret information to a text file. Maybe you have better ideas of what to do with encrypted stuff! This little module will convert all your data into nice base64 text that you can save in a text file, send in an email, store in a cookie or web page, or bounce around the Net. The data you encrypt can be as simple or as complicated as you like. CHANGES Version 0.05 had a few missing subroutine bodies, so quite a few things didn't work! I'm now practising what I preach, and have written some tests! INTERNALS "Crypt::Simple" is really just a wrapper round a few other useful Perl modules: you may want to read the documentation for these modules too. We use "FreezeThaw" to squish all your data into a concise textual representation. We use "Compress::Zlib" to compress this string, and then use "Crypt::Blowfish" in a home-brew CBC mode to perform the encryption. Somewhere in this process we also add a MD5 digest (using "Digest::MD5"). Then we throw the whole thing through "MIME::Base64" to produce a nice bit of text for you to play with. Decryption, obviously, is the reverse of this process. WARNING Governments throughout the world do not like encryption because it makes it difficult for them to look at all your stuff. Each country has a different policy designed to stop you using encryption: some governments are honest enough to make it illegal; some think it is a dangerous weapon; some insist that you are free to encrypt, but only evil people would want to; some make confusing and contradictory laws because they try to do all of the above. Although this modules itself does not include any encryption code, it does use another module that contains encryption code, and this documentation mentions encryption. Downloading, using, or reading this modules could be illegal where you live. AUTHOR Marty Pauley COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2001 Kasei Limited This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.