Tink
A multi-language, cross-platform library that provides cryptographic APIs that are secure, easy to use correctly, and hard(er) to misuse.
Ubuntu, macOS
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Index
- Introduction
- Getting started
- Overview
- Current status
- Learn more
- Contact and mailing list
- Maintainers
Introduction
Using crypto in your application shouldn't have
to
feel like juggling chainsaws in the dark. Tink is a crypto library written by a
group of cryptographers and security engineers at Google. It was born out of
our extensive experience working with Google's product teams, fixing
weaknesses in implementations, and
providing simple APIs that can be used safely without needing a crypto
background.
Tink provides secure APIs that are easy to use correctly and hard(er) to misuse.
It reduces common crypto pitfalls with user-centered design, careful
implementation and code reviews, and extensive testing. At Google, Tink is
already being used to secure data of many products such as AdMob, Google Pay,
Google Assistant, Firebase, the Android Search App, etc.
To get a quick overview of Tink design please take a look at
slides from a
talk about Tink presented
at Real World Crypto 2019.
Getting started
Tink primarily uses Bazel to manage building and testing
the project.
The recommended way to get started with Tink is to use
Bazelisk. This tool is developed by
the Bazel team and makes it easy to ensure usage of a version of Bazel that's
compatible with the project.
As a starting point, the hello world examples
demonstrate performing simple tasks using Tink in a variety of languages.
Overview
Tink performs cryptographic tasks via so-called primitives,
each of which is defined via a corresponding interface that specifies the
functionality of the primitive. For example, symmetric key encryption is
offered via an AEAD-primitive (Authenticated Encryption with Associated
Data), that
supports two operations:
encrypt(plaintext, associated_data), which encrypts the givenplaintext
(usingassociated_dataas additional AEAD-input) and returns the resulting
ciphertextdecrypt(ciphertext, associated_data), which decrypts the given
ciphertext(usingassociated_dataas additional AEAD-input) and returns
the resulting plaintext
Before implementations of primitives can be used, they must be registered at
runtime with Tink, so that Tink "knows" the desired implementations. Here's how
you can register all implementations of all primitives in Tink:
import com.google.crypto.tink.config.TinkConfig;
TinkConfig.register();
After implementations of primitives have been registered, the basic use of Tink
proceeds in three steps:
- Load or generate the cryptographic key material (a
Keysetin Tink terms). - Use the key material to get an instance of the chosen primitive.
- Use that primitive to accomplish the cryptographic task.
Here is how these steps would look like when encrypting or decrypting with an
AEAD primitive in Java:
import com.google.crypto.tink.Aead;
import com.google.crypto.tink.KeysetHandle;
import com.google.crypto.tink.aead.AeadKeyTemplates;
// 1. Generate the key material.
KeysetHandle keysetHandle = KeysetHandle.generateNew(
AeadKeyTemplates.AES128_GCM);
// 2. Get the primitive.
Aead aead = keysetHandle.getPrimitive(Aead.class);
// 3. Use the primitive.
byte[] ciphertext = aead.encrypt(plaintext, associatedData);
Current status
-
Java and Android, C++,
Obj-C, and Go are field
tested and ready for production. The latest version is
1.3.0-rc3,
released on 2019-12-19. -
Tink for Python and JavaScript are in active development.
Learn more
- Java HOW-TO
- C++ HOW-TO
- Obj-C HOW-TO
- Go HOW-TO
- Security and Usability Design Goals
- Supported Crypto Primitives
- Key Management
- Tinkey
- Known Issues
- Feature Roadmap
- Java Hacking Guide
Community-driven ports
Out of the box Tink supports a wide range of languages, but it still doesn't
support every language. Fortunately, some users like Tink so much that they've
ported it to their favorite languages! Below you can find notable ports.
WARNING While we usually review these ports, until further notice, we do not
maintain them and have no plan to support them in the foreseeable future.
Contact and mailing list
If you want to contribute, please read CONTRIBUTING
and send us pull requests. You can also report bugs or file feature requests.
If you'd like to talk to the developers or get notified about major product
updates, you may want to subscribe to our
mailing list.
Maintainers
Tink is maintained by (A-Z):
- Haris Andrianakis
- Daniel Bleichenbacher
- Tanuj Dhir
- Thai Duong
- Thomas Holenstein
- Stefan Kölbl
- Charles Lee
- Quan Nguyen
- Bartosz Przydatek
- Enzo Puig
- Sophie Schmieg
- Veronika Slívová
- Paula Vidas
- Jürg Wullschleger