0_railsencrypt.md

This is a note on storing encrypted data in Rails

1_attr_encrypted.md

DB neutral encryption

The gen attr_encrypted is a very popular option to get DB independent and framework independent encryption. It is known to work with -

• ActiveRecord
• DataMapper
• Mongoid see here for required tweaks
• Sequel

It offers the following features:

• Specify attributes to be encrypted - attr_encrypted :ssn, :key => 'a secret key'
• Specify alternate attribute name - attr_encrypted :email, :key => 'a secret key', :attribute => 'email_encrypted'
• Calculate encryption keys dynamically
• • by specifying a method - attr_encrypted :email, :key => :get_key
• • by specifying a proc - attr_encrypted :email, :key => proc { |user| user.key }
• Specify custom encryptors
• All encryption algorithms suported by the Encryptor gem
• Store any serialisable data in the encrypted field - attr_encrypted :credentials, :key => 'some secret key', :marshal => true

2_db_encrypt.md

Encryption at the DB level

Different databases provide transparent, client independent database encryption mechanisms. This makes the encryption transparent to the client programs and is relatively faster. This comes at a cost to the ease of implementation and supported encryption algorithms.

• Postgres - Postgres provides the pgcrypto module to handle encryption