Tink

Tink is a cryptographic library that provides a safe, simple, agile and fast way to accomplish common cryptographic tasks. It is written by a group of cryptographers and security engineers at Google, but it is not an official Google product. In particular, is not meant as a replacement or successor of Keyczar.

IMPORTANT: Tink is still a work-in-progress, and API might change or be deprecated without a notice. We hope to change this policy once Tink stabilizes.

Getting started

Tink performs cryptographic tasks via so-called primitives, each of which is defined via a corresponding interface that specifies the functionality of the primitive. For example, symmetric key encryption is offered via an AEAD-primitive (Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data), that supports two operations:

• encrypt(plaintext, associated_data), which encrypts the given plaintext (using associated_data as additional AEAD-input) and returns the resulting ciphertext
• decrypt(ciphertext, associated_data), which decrypts the given ciphertext (using associated_data as additional AEAD-input) and returns the resulting plaintext

Currently Tink already provides primitives for several common cryptographic operations (like symmetric encryption, message authentication codes, digital signatures, hybrid encryption), and additional primitives are in preparation. Moreover, Tink lets users add new primitives or custom implementations of existing primitives, which allows them to build upon Tink's core architecture and key manangement abilities without having to fork the library.

The basic use of Tink proceeds in three steps:

1. Load or generate the cryptographic key material (a Keyset in Tink terms).
2. Use the key material to get an instance of the chosen primitive.
3. Use that primitive to accomplish the cryptographic task.

To be more concrete, here is how these steps would look like when performing symmetric encryption (AEAD) in a Java program:

    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.Aead;
    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.aead.AeadFactory;
    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.KeysetHandle;
    // [...]

    // 1. Get the key material.
    KeysetHandle keysetHandle = ...;
    // 2. Get the primitive.
    Aead aead = AeadFactory.getPrimitive(keysetHandle);
    // 3. Use the primitive.
    byte[] ciphertext = aead.encrypt(plaintext, aad);

In Step #1 above one can get a KeysetHandle to an existing keyset kept in a storage system...

KeysetHandle keysetHandle = SomeKeyStorage.loadKeyset(keysetId);

... or generate fresh key material by using a template, which defines the shape of the key:

KeysetHandle keysetHandle = CleartextKeysetHandle.generateNew(keyTemplate);

The flow is identical for other primitives. For instance, here is how to use the Message Authentication Code (MAC) primitive (notice the usage of MacFactory):

    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.Mac;
    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.mac.MacFactory;
    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.KeysetHandle;
    // [...]

    // 1. Get the key material.
    KeysetHandle keysetHandle = ...;
    // 2. Get the primitive.
    Mac mac = MacFactory.getPrimitive(keysetHandle);
    // 3. Use the primitive.
    byte[] macValue = mac.computeMac(data);

Before a specific implementation of a primitive can be used, it must be registered at runtime in the Tink library, so that it "knows" the desired implementations. For example, if one would like to use the standard implementations of AEAD and MAC primitives offered by Tink, the initialization looks as follows:

    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.aead.AeadFactory;
    import com.google.cloud.crypto.tink.mac.MacFactory;
    // [...]

    // Register standard implementations of AEAD and MAC primitives.
    AeadFactory.registerStandardKeyTypes();
    MacFactory.registerStandardKeyTypes();

Now that you already know how to use Tink (it is really that simple!), you can proceed with using it in your code. Alternatively, you can continue reading the sections below to get more information about the library: its features, security, structure, extensibility, and more. To get direct instructions on how to accomplish certain tasks with Tink see Java HOW-TO.

Tink overview

Basic Features Tink provides a set of basic tools to perform common crypto tasks in a variety of environments. The main operations are accessible via so-called primitives, which represent cryptographic tools. Currently Tink supports the following cryptographic operations:

• authenticated encryption with associated data (primitive: AEAD)
• message authentication codes (primitive: MAC),
• digital signatures (primitives: PublicKeySign and PublicKeyVerify)
• hybrid encryption (primitives: HybridEncrypt and HybridDecrypt).

In the future other primitives will be added, e.g. deterministic encryption (e.g., SIV modes), pseudorandom function (e.g., HMAC as a PRF), strong pseudorandom permutation (e.g., HEH).

Envelope Encryption Tink supports envelope encryption (a.k.a. KMS Envelope) which is getting popular with Cloud users. In this mode, Cloud users generate a data encryption key (DEK) locally, encrypt data with DEK, send DEK to a Key Management System (KMS) such as AWS KMS or Google Cloud KMS to be encrypted, and stores encrypted DEK with encrypted data; at a later point Cloud users can retrieve encrypted data and DEK, use the KMS to decrypt DEK, and use decrypted DEK to decrypt the data.

Key Management In addition to cryptographic operations Tink provides also support for key management features like key versioning, key rotation, storing and loading keys from key management systems, and more. For example, if a cryptographic scheme is found broken, one can switch to a new implementation of the primitive by rotating the key without changing or recompiling code.

Currently, Tink supports the following key management systems:

• Google Cloud KMS
• Amazon KMS
• Android Keystore System (planned)
• Apple iOS KeyChain (planned)

One can easily add support for in-house key management system, without having to change anything in Tink.

Composability, Extensibility, and Interoperability The core of Tink is relatively small, and most components can be selected and assembled in various combinations to satisfy specific user requirements about code size or performance. For example, if you need only digital signatures, you don't have to include authenticated encryption in your compiled code.

It is easy to add new primitives, protocols or interfaces to Tink. Without touching the core library, can easily add support for new algorithms, new ciphertext formats, or new key management systems (e.g., in-house Hardware Security Modules), etc.

Tink produces and consumes ciphertexts that are compatible with other libraries. Except in a few cases, implementations of crypto primitives in Tink come from existing libraries such as OpenSSL, BoringSSL, NaCl, Bouncy Castle, OpenJDK, etc. Because Tink is not a rewrite of these underlying libraries, but is rather a high-level abstraction of them, it supports ciphertext formats and algorithms supported by these libraries.

Languages and Platforms Tink for Java is field tested and ready for production. C++ is in active development and we're planning support for Go, Python, Javascript. Tink supports Android, Linux (Google Cloud Engine or Amazon EC2), Google App Engine. iOS support is in active development.

Primitives and Their Implementations

Primitives represent cryptographic operations offered by Tink, hence they form the core of Tink API. A primitive is just an interface that specifies what operations are offered by the primitive. A primitive can have multiple implementations, and user chooses a desired implementation by using a key of corresponding type (see the next section for details). Although the implementations of a given primitive can be totally independent of each other, they all have to fulfill a clearly-defined security contract, to assure that the use of a particular primitive does provide sufficient protections and does not introduce security risks (see Security and Safety below).

The following table summarizes Java implementations of primitives that are currently available or planned (the latter are listed in brackets).

Primitive	Implementations
AEAD	AES-EAX, AES-GCM, AES-CTR-HMAC, KMS Envelope
MAC	HMAC-SHA2
Digital Signatures	ECDSA over NIST curves, (EdDSA over Ed25519)
Hybrid Encryption	ECIES with AEAD and HKDF, (NaCl CryptoBox)

Tink user accesses implementations of a primitive via a factory that corresponds to the primitive: AEAD via AeadFactory, MAC via MacFactory, etc. where each factory offers corresponding getPrimitive(...) methods.

Key, Keyset, and KeysetHandle

A particular implementation of a primitive is identified by a cryptographic key structure that contains all key material and parameters needed to provide the functionality of the primitive. The key structure is a protocol buffer, whose globally unique name (a.k.a. type url) is referred to as key type, and is used as an identifier of the corresponding implementation of a primitive. Any particular implementation comes in a form of a KeyManager which “understands” the key type: the manager can instantiate the primitive corresponding to a given key, or can generate new keys of the supported key type.

To take advantage of key rotation and other key management features, a Tink user works usually not with single keys, but with keysets, which are just sets of keys with some additional parameters and metadata. In particular, this extra information in the keyset determines which key is primary (i.e. will be used to create new cryptographic data like ciphertexts, or signatures), which keys are enabled (i.e. can be used to process existing cryptographic data, like decrypt ciphertext or verify signatures), and which keys should not be used any more. For more details about the structure of keys, keysets and related protocol buffers see tink.proto.

The keys in a keyset can belong to different implementations/key types, but must all implement the same primitive. Any given keyset (and any given key) can be used for one primitive only. Moreover, to protect from accidental leakage or corruption, an Tink user doesn’t work directly with keysets, but rather with KeysetHandle objects, which form a wrapper around the keysets. Creation of KeysetHandle objects can be restricted to specific factories (whose visibility can be governed by a white list), to enable control over actual storage of the keys and keysets, and so avoid accidental leakage of secret key material.

Security and Safety

Tink reduces common crypto pitfalls with user-centered design, careful implementation and code reviews, and extensive testing.

Tink stems from combined decades of experience in building and breaking real-world cryptosystems. We are also maintainers of Project Wycheproof, a framework for validating the correctness of crypto libraries, thus Tink has been continuously tested and should be safe against known crypto weaknesses.

Tink provides APIs that decrease the potential for abuse or misuse. In particular, implementations of a high level interface are foolproof in the sense: We assume that the attacker has complete freedom in calling methods of a high level interface; under this assumption the security is not compromised.

For example if the underlying encryption mode requires nonces and is insecure if nonces are reused then the interface do not allow to pass nonces. We also assume that the attacker can get access to memory passed into a method, even if a cryptographic operation (e.g. decryption) failed.

Tink's interfaces abstract away from the underlying implementation. Instances are usable without knowing the underlying class that implements it. It is also possible to change the underlying implementation of an interface without changes to the call of the interface. Interfaces have security guarantees that must be satisfied by each primitive implementing the interface. This may exclude some encryption modes. Rather than adding them to existing interfaces and weakening the guarantees of the interface it is possible to add new interfaces and describe the security guarantees appropriately.

A good practice is to use each key for one purpose only. The storage format of Tink keys contains information such that correct usage of the key can be checked at runtime.

Readability Tink declares cryptographic properties (e.g., whether safe against chosen-ciphertext attacks) through the primitives (i.e., interfaces), allowing security auditors and automated tools quickly discovering incorrect usages.

On an abstract level we think that it is not necessary to know whether the cryptosystem has been proposed by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman or by Victor Shoup, but you should be able to determine if an object implements an encryption or signature algorithm. Also, knowing that an encryption mode is authenticated is more important than knowing it uses AES. This is why we name our interfaces as generic as possible (e.g., Aead, PublicKeySign, etc.), but not too general (e.g., Crypter, Signer, etc.)

Visibility Tink provides standalone static types for potential dangerous operations (e.g., loading cleartext keys from disk), allowing restricting, monitoring and logging their usages.

Maintainers

Tink is maintained by:

• Daniel Bleichenbacher
• Thai Duong
• Quan Nguyen
• Bartosz Przydatek

Contact and mailing list

If you want to contribute, please read CONTRIBUTING and send us pull requests. You can also report bugs or request new tests.

If you'd like to talk to our developers or get notified about major new tests, you may want to subscribe to our mailing list. To join, simply send an empty email to tink-users+subscribe@googlegroups.com.