[Hsqldb-developers] Data Encryption Support & Questions

[Edwin S. R. <ra...@id...>]

Hello,

    I have recently started looking at HSQLDB and I am interested in 
participating
in it's development.  I have added encryption support to the text tables. 
It currently, encrypts/decrypts each line (record) as it is read/written 
to the file.
I don't know if the way that I implemented this is the best way, but 
basically:

TextDatabaseRowInput:
    public void setSource(String text, int pos) {
        String temp = cr.decrypt(text) + "\n";
        this.text = temp.substring(0, temp.indexOf('\n'));
          ...

TextDatabaseRowOutput:
    public byte[] toByteArray() throws IOException {
        ...
        return (cr.encrypt(ret));
    }

where cr is an object which contains the appropriate key/cipher 
algorithm for this table.

I read all (I think) the previous posting regarding encryption and it 
was not
clear to me what has been done in this area.  But there was a lot of 
discussion
a couple of years ago.  Anyway, this is what I envision:

- The encryption should be optional for each text table (some encrypted, 
some plain).
- In addition to whether a text table is encrypted, the table should 
also be associated
  with an encryption class.  Each class should specify an algorithm 
(RC4, DES, 3DES...)
  and a key.  Such that, different text tables may be encrypted with 
different keys/algorithms.


- For stand alone implementations:
      The encryption key should be provided by the enclosing application. 
      This means that it would be up to the application developer to 
decide how the
      key will be provided to the database engine.  This includes 
whether the key
      is stored on the file system, is provided by the user, etc.

- For client/server implementations:
      Anybody???

Questions:

How do I extend the SET TABLE ... SOURCE "...", so that in addition to 
the source file,
field separator, etc., it has encrypted=y;class=c1?

How do I get these properties back in the TextDataRowInput/Output classes?

What's the best (good enough) way for the TextDataRowInput/Output 
classes to obtain the
cr object? 
I thought of static methods of some class, let say, "org.hsqldb.ciphers" 
and then
both TextDataRowInput/Output classes can retrieve the ciphers that the 
application placed there
prior to accessing the tables.

What do you think?

Be kind...  I don't deal well with rejection, criticism, spellling... ;-}

-Edwin S. Ramirez-