Loading and storing encryption keys from a config source

Question

I am writing an application which has an authenticity mechanism, using HMAC-sha1, plus a CBC-blowfish pass over the data for good measure. This requires 2 keys and one ivec.

I have looked at Crypto++ but the documentation is very poor (for example the HMAC documentation). So I am going oldschool and use Openssl. Whats the best way to generate and load these keys using library functions and tools ? I don't require a secure-socket therefore a x.509 certificate probably does not make sense, unless, of-course, I am missing something.

So, do I need to write my own config file, or is there any infrastructure in openssl for this ? If so, could you direct me to some documentation or examples for this.

Answer 1

Although it doesn't answer your question directly, if you are looking at this as a method of copy protection for your program, the following related questions may make for interesting reading.

• Preventing the Circumvention of Copy Protection
• What copy protection technique do you use?
• Software protection by encryption
• How do you protect your software from illegal distribution?

Answer 2

This is the solution I am going for atm. Unless of course someone comes up with a better one, or one that solves my specific problem.

I will put three files in /etc/acme/auth/file1 file2 and file3, binary files with randomly generates numbers for the 2 keys and the ivec, and do the same in windows but under c:\etc\acme\auth.