Signing and verifying data using pycrypto (RSA)

Question

I am trying to familiarize myself with the pycrypto module, but the lack of clear documentation makes things difficult.

To start with, I would like to understand signing and verifying data. Could someone please provide an example for how this would be written?

Answer 1

This is a fleshed-out version of the example in the old PyCrypto documentation:

Ensure you are using pycryptodome and not pycrypto (which is unmaintained!)

pycryptodome can be installed with pip install pycryptodome

import Crypto.Hash.MD5 as MD5
import Crypto.PublicKey.RSA as RSA
import Crypto.PublicKey.DSA as DSA
import Crypto.PublicKey.ElGamal as ElGamal
import Crypto.Util.number as CUN
import os

plaintext = 'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain'

# Here is a hash of the message
hash = MD5.new(plaintext).digest()
print(repr(hash))
# '\xb1./J\xa883\x974\xa4\xac\x1e\x1b!\xc8\x11'

for alg in (RSA, DSA, ElGamal):
    # Generates a fresh public/private key pair
    key = alg.generate(384, os.urandom)

    if alg == DSA:
        K = CUN.getRandomNumber(128, os.urandom)
    elif alg == ElGamal:
        K = CUN.getPrime(128, os.urandom)
        while CUN.GCD(K, key.p - 1) != 1:
            print('K not relatively prime with {n}'.format(n=key.p - 1))
            K = CUN.getPrime(128, os.urandom)
        # print('GCD({K},{n})=1'.format(K=K,n=key.p-1))
    else:
        K = ''

    # You sign the hash
    signature = key.sign(hash, K)
    print(len(signature), alg.__name__)
    # (1, 'Crypto.PublicKey.RSA')
    # (2, 'Crypto.PublicKey.DSA')
    # (2, 'Crypto.PublicKey.ElGamal')

    # You share pubkey with Friend
    pubkey = key.publickey()

    # You send message (plaintext) and signature to Friend.
    # Friend knows how to compute hash.
    # Friend verifies the message came from you this way:
    assert pubkey.verify(hash, signature)

    # A different hash should not pass the test.
    assert not pubkey.verify(hash[:-1], signature)