README

This is a proof-of-concept implementation of Java bindings for (some of)
the elliptic curve functions of the CryptoPP library.

NOTE THAT THIS PROJECT IS IN AN EXPERIMENTAL STADIUM AND SHOULD NOT BE
USED IN PRODUCTION CODE!

Requirements
============

* Java 7 (or later) JDK
* ant
* optionally netbeans
* c++ compiler
* make utility
* cryptopp library + headers

Building
========

* Check out a working copy
* cd csrc
* make

Alternatively, open the project in Netbeans, navigate to the csrc directory in
the "Files" tab, and execute make via right click on the Makefile.

The java class files will be put into the build/classes directory, the native
code library into build/c.

Using
=====

The entry point into this library is de.quisquis.ec.ECFactory .
ECFactory.getInstance will return a CryptoppFactory instance if the native
library is available, or an alternative implementation based on the
Bouncycastle java crypto library.

The ECFactory provides methods to create objects implementing basic crypto
functions, namely:

* generate key pairs
* sign messages
* verify signatures
* encrypt messages
* decrypt messages

Note that the cryptoppjava native code library must reside in a directory
where it can be found by System.loadLibrary. This is typically
- a system directory, or
- specified through the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
- specified through the java.library.path system property

When you're using netbeans, it is already configure to set the java.library.path
property to "build/c" for running the unit tests.

Known Problems
==============

Interoperability of the Bouncecastle-based and CryptoPP-based implementations
has NOT been tested. According to this, they're most likely not interoperable:
http://www.cryptopp.com/wiki/Elliptic_Curve_Integrated_Encryption_Scheme#Bouncy_Castle
A patch for the CryptoPP library exists, so this can probably be solved.