webfork wrote: ↑Mon May 02, 2022 7:52 pm
but why an encryption program? Is this different or better than similar tools e.g. Kleopatra or AxCrypt?
I think "better" is
not the right category here
Of course, you can just use one of the the existing encryption programs and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that — though I'd rather go with a "true" free/libre software such as
VeraCrypt, instead of a dubious "freemium" service like
AxCrypt, which claims to be "OpenSource" but has
no source codes anywhere to be found on their web-site, just a ton of advertising for paid services;
Kleopatra, being a GUI front-end to GnuPG, is another use case — but creating your own encryption software is more fun and enlightening
Is it different? Well, yes. It's a completely independent
algorithm and implementation, created from the scratch. Though based on well-established concepts and a scientific paper, which proposed various improvements.
In fact, it is a common practice that cryptographic algorithms and their reference implementation are released as "public domain".
...probably because
no cryptographic algorithm that is "tainted" by a
restrictive license would ever have a chance to get widespread adoption. Even an OpenSource license like
GPL is considered too much restrictive in this regard, because it would make using that algorithm impossible in any software project that, for whatever reasons, can't be released under the GPL as a whole. More permissive OpenSource licenses like
MIT or
BSD may work, but "public domain" is preferred in order to rule out any doubts.
Also "CC0" license is a common choice, as used by
SHA-3 (Keccak) and
BLAKE2, just to name two prominent examples...
