Cryptography for Visual Basic(r) : A Programmer's Guide to the Microsoft(r) CryptoAPI

The Microsoft CryptoAPI can provide "strong," unbreakable encryption on the Windows platform. If you're a Visual Basic (VB) programmer, Richard Bondi's Cryptography for Visual Basic can put this powerful set of APIs within your reach. This title will serve as both an introduction to cryptography and a how-to with CryptoAPI by using the author's prebuilt library of COM objects.

The early part of this book tries hard to put the elements of today's public key encryption standards (like RSA) within the grasp of the VB programmer. You'll learn the basics of random-number generation, ciphers, keys, and the "protocols" behind today's encryption standards. Inevitably, these are written by using shorthand, such as, "Alice wants to send Bob a message." The author manages to make essential concepts in cryptography rather clear.

The next section here lays the foundation for working with the Microsoft CryptoAPI by presenting a number of useful strategies for passing (and returning) values to and from C from within VB, along with techniques for error handling and improved performance.

The heart of this text is the author's custom library of COM objects that "wrap" the underlying Microsoft CryptoAPI C calls for use from within VB. Subsequent chapters look at various areas of the CryptoAPI and the resulting COM objects. The author covers not only the assumptions and strategies of working with the CryptoAPI, but also the design choices that are made in his library. For those who are in a rush, the book provides sample code on how to use this library in your own VB applications in an appendix.

Today, security is a concern in any enterprise, so Cryptography for Visual Basic fills a useful niche. It explains the basics of encryption technologies, shows off how it's done on the Windows platform with the Microsoft CryptoAPI, and also makes it possible to call these APIs from within VB. If you have wondered how cryptography works, or how it's implemented in Windows, this tutorial can put you on the right track. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

1. Introduction to cryptography
2. Ciphers
3. Random-number generators (RNGs)
4. One-pad ciphers
5. Public-key cryptography
6. Symmetric and asymmetric ciphers
7. Overview of the Microsoft CryptoAPI
8. Techniques for parameter passing from VB to Win32 C APIs
9. VB string handling tips
10. Bitwise logic
11. Performance tips
12. Error handling
13. Wiley CryptoAPI COM Objects (WCCO) (the author's custom VB COM object library for the CryptoAPI)
14. CryptoAPI providers and containers
15. Key and key-pair objects
16. Hashing and signing
17. Encryption and message texts
18. Key management and data security
19. Public law and cryptography
20. Sample code for using the WCCO library