[RESOLVED] Fastest Encryption

[INF3RN0666]

Hi, I would like to know what is the fastest encryption available, but I don't want it to be intensively secure. I just want something illegible to the human eye. For example, letter key shifting doesn't work because it's easy to visualize what the words were before hand. I just need something that you can't just crack by staring at it for 10 seconds, but it can't be resource intensive or slow. Any ideas?

[Static]

Just call encode or decode

Public Function Encode(Data As String) As String
    
    Randomize
    
    Dim Key() As Long
    ReDim Key(Len(Data))
    
    Dim i As Long
    Dim LenData As Long
    Dim Coded As String
    Coded = ""
    
    LenData = Len(Data)
    For i = 1 To LenData
        Key(i) = (Rnd() * 50 + 1) + 20 'Define keys for each character
    Next
    
    For i = 1 To LenData
        'Adding the key to each character's ascii
        If Asc(Mid$(Data, i, 1)) + Key(i) > 255 Then
            'If the new ascii value exceeds 255(Highest char ascii), then count upwards from 0
            Coded = Coded & Chr$(Key(i)) & Chr$(Asc(Mid$(Data, i, 1)) + Key(i) - 255)
        Else
            Coded = Coded & Chr$(Key(i)) & Chr$(Asc(Mid$(Data, i, 1)) + Key(i))
        End If
    Next
    'Return encoded value
    'Debug.Print Len(Coded)
    Encode = Coded
    
End Function
 
Public Function Decode(Data As String) As String
    
    Dim Key() As Long
    ReDim Key(Len(Data))
    
    Dim i As Long
    Dim Decoded As String
    Dim CodedString As String
    Dim LenData As Long
    Dim LenCodedString As Long
    Dim NextChr As Long
    
    Decoded = ""
    CodedString = ""
    
    'Seperate the key from the actual code
    LenData = Len(Data)
    For i = 1 To LenData
        If (i / 2) = Int(i / 2) Then
            CodedString = CodedString & Mid$(Data, i, 1)
        Else
            Key(((i - 1) / 2) + 1) = Asc(Mid$(Data, i, 1))
        End If
    Next
    
    'Minus the key from each character
    LenCodedString = Len(CodedString)
    For i = 1 To LenCodedString
    NextChr = Asc(Mid$(CodedString, i, 1)) - Key(i)
    'If the new ascii is below 0, then count backwards from 255
    If NextChr <= 0 Then
    NextChr = NextChr + 255
End If
'Add to decoded string
Decoded = Decoded + Chr$(NextChr)
Next
'Return Decoded value
Decode = Decoded
 
End Function

[CVMichael]

I modified the code in my original thread ( VB - 31 Bit Encryption function ) for speed

It should be fast enough, and it's definitelly not readable because it's using random numbers XORed with original string to encrypt.

Public Function RndCrypt(ByRef Str As String, ByVal Password As String) As String
    '
    '  Made by Michael Ciurescu (CVMichael from vbforums.com)
    '  Original thread: [url]http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=231798[/url]
    '
    Dim SK As Long, K As Long, Data() As Byte
    Data = StrConv(Str, vbFromUnicode)
    
    ' init randomizer for password
    Rnd -1
    Randomize Len(Password)
    ' (((K Mod 256) Xor Asc(Mid$(Password, K, 1))) Xor Fix(256 * Rnd)) -> makes sure that a
    ' password like "pass12" does NOT give the same result as the password "sspa12" or "12pass"
    ' or "1pass2" etc. (or any combination of the same letters)
    
    For K = 1 To Len(Password)
        SK = SK + (((K Mod 256) Xor Asc(Mid$(Password, K, 1))) Xor Fix(256 * Rnd))
    Next K
    
    ' init randomizer for encryption/decryption
    Rnd -1
    Randomize SK
    
    ' encrypt/decrypt every character using the randomizer
    For K = 0 To UBound(Data)
        Data(K) = Fix(256 * Rnd) Xor Data(K)
    Next K
    
    RndCrypt = StrConv(Data, vbUnicode)
End Function

[Merri]

Remove StrConv and any string processing besides copying byte array to a string and vice versa and you get much faster result (especially with a compiled program).

[CVMichael]

Remove StrConv and any string processing besides copying byte array to a string and vice versa and you get much faster result (especially with a compiled program).

You mean something like this ?

Option Explicit
 
Private Declare Sub CopyMemoryStrToAny Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (pDest As Any, ByVal pSrc As String, ByVal ByteLen As Long)
Private Declare Sub CopyMemoryAnyToStr Lib "kernel32" Alias "RtlMoveMemory" (ByVal pDest As String, pSrc As Any, ByVal ByteLen As Long)
 
Public Function RndCrypt(ByRef Str As String, ByVal Password As String) As String
    '
    '  Made by Michael Ciurescu (CVMichael from vbforums.com)
    '  Original thread: [url]http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=231798[/url]
    '
    Dim SK As Long, K As Long, Data() As Byte
    
    ReDim Data(Len(Str) - 1)
    CopyMemoryStrToAny Data(0), Str, Len(Str)
    
    ' init randomizer for password
    Rnd -1
    Randomize Len(Password)
    ' (((K Mod 256) Xor Asc(Mid$(Password, K, 1))) Xor Fix(256 * Rnd)) -> makes sure that a
    ' password like "pass12" does NOT give the same result as the password "sspa12" or "12pass"
    ' or "1pass2" etc. (or any combination of the same letters)
    
    For K = 1 To Len(Password)
        SK = SK + (((K Mod 256) Xor Asc(Mid$(Password, K, 1))) Xor Fix(256 * Rnd))
    Next K
    
    ' init randomizer for encryption/decryption
    Rnd -1
    Randomize SK
    
    ' encrypt/decrypt every character using the randomizer
    For K = 0 To UBound(Data)
        Data(K) = Fix(256 * Rnd) Xor Data(K)
    Next K
    
    RndCrypt = String(Len(Str), 0)
    CopyMemoryAnyToStr RndCrypt, Data(0), Len(Str)
End Function

[Merri]

There are slowdown factors:

• In CopyMemory, you're passing as string. This causes Unicode <-> ANSI conversion behind the scenes.
• Doing API calls is slow.
• Mid$ and Asc are very slow.
• String$ is slow.
• Password is passed to the function ByVal (= extra copy made of the string = slow).

Every time you copy memory, every time you handle memory, every time you calculate anything, you're slowing things down. It is a challenge to get rid of all the things that unnecessarily slowdown the code

Of course, it is all up to how much speed is required and how it is required. For example, doing lots of sequential calls for small files would require minimal bloat between the actual processing of the data, thus CopyMemory would be a major cause of slowdown with, say, 10000 files. In the other hand, with smaller amount of big files it would be important to make sure the main processing is fast and most of the waiting is caused by the main processing.


But if we truly wanted the fastest encryption, we'd use ASM and not VB.

[CVMichael]

So, how would you write the code improving the points you made ?

I want to learn how to make fast code

[INF3RN0666]

Thx for the rndCrypt function. it's quite quick. Exactly what I was looking for. Hopefully won't be too similar that people can recognize characters.