A cryptostream is a stream that implements a stream cipher, which is a symmetric encryption algorithm that encrypts arbitrary length input stream of plain text, using a cipher stream (key) to produce an output stream of ciphertext.
What is it?
A cryptostream is a stream that implements a stream cipher.
A stream cipher is a symmetric encryption algorithm which encrypts arbitrary length stream of plain text, using a cipher stream (key) to produce a stream of ciphertext.
How does it work?
Symmetric encryption algorithm are subdivided in block ciphers and stream ciphers. Block ciphers encrypt fixed blocks of plaintext bits. Stream ciphers encrypt each plain text digit one by one.
So a stream cipher converts a stream of plaintext into a stream of ciphertext in real-time.
The .net framework offers a CryptoStream class that implements a stream cipher.
See also
- Stream cipher on Wikipedia
- Cryptostream class documenteation for the .net framwework
