Author: JT Smith
Farm9.com is pleased to announce our first release of Open Source tools. We started off with a simple but very useful tool called Netcat
written by the L0pht and we modified it to provide encryption. We
implemented TwoFish, which is a very strong algorithm and one of the
contenders to replace DES. THe result: Cryptcat = netcat + encryption.
What is Cryptcat good for, you ask? Basically it lets you open an
encrypted pipe, on any port, between two machines. It’s useful for
transferring log files between machines in a safe manner. cryptcat is
easy to use in shell scripts. It’s a poor mans VPN. It is very small
and light.
Source code is included.
Also see our Web site!
Twofish is courtesy of Counterpane, and Cryptix. We started with the
Java version of Twofish from cryptix, converted it to C++ (don’t ask
why), and enhanced it by adding CBC mode and the ciphertext stealing
technique from Applied Cryptography (pg. 196).
How do you use it?
Machine A: cryptcat -l -p 1234 Machine B: cryptcat 1234
This is identical to the normal Netcat options for doing exactly the
same thing. However, in this case the data transferred is encrypted.
Want the source? Hit the Web site or SourceForge.
Windows version — adapted from the Hobbit original by Weld Pond, very
tricky! (and I thought adding Twofish was tricky).
Linux version — why I like Linux, only had to change two lines of
code to add encryption.
Is it really secure?
Not if you know the secret key, which is hardcoded to be “metallica”
— Submitted by mag00@farm9.com
