CODEX

CODEX is a cool software made for apps that have a decent number of clients wanting authentication keys. If you've ever thought about how to keep things secure, you know it's often tricky. Sometimes, you might think about using some out-of-band way to share keys or secrets. For apps that don’t have built-in security, having a key distribution system can really help with using symmetric key encryption for access control. This need led to the creation of the CODEX (Cornell Data Exchange) key distribution system.

How CODEX Works

So, CODEX is meant for apps with a moderate number of clients—think tens or hundreds—who ask for keys that change often but not all the time. We’re talking changes on the scale of minutes to hours here!

Features and Security

This software builds on ideas from another project called COCA. It uses RSA and ElGamal encryption techniques along with some fancy methods like threshold cryptography and proactive secret sharing. If you're curious about those topics, check out the COCA page where there are lots of helpful links!

Toolkit Development

A big part of creating CODEX was making a general toolkit for various building blocks needed by the system. You can find more about these in the Implementation section, plus the full source code is available too!

Important Notes

I found out through a random Google search that this project is now featured on Freshmeat! There are a few important things to note about its implementation:

• The code quality is more research-focused rather than production-ready.


• The system uses spin-waiting which might really put pressure on your host server.


• You’ll need to reboot from clean media periodically and set up new public/private key pairs.


• If you trust your setup enough to use CODEX, just know there’s no credentials mechanism right now.

The existing policy object accepts any credentials as valid, which isn’t great since access control relies heavily on enforcing policies. So if you're thinking about deploying a CODEX system instead of just using its libraries to build something new, you’ll definitely need an actual policy/credentials mechanism in place.

What's New?

• This release has been updated for compatibility with Doxygen 1.4.1 and works with g++ up to version 3.3.5.


• The CODEX_Quorum/Socket.cc now supports non-stream sockets (like UDP).


• CODEX_Quorum/SocketBuilder.h includes a copy constructor now!

If you want to download CODEX, head over to SoftPas!