cryptography - Recommended Python cryptographic module?

Question

I've been exploring what cryptographic modules are available to Python, and I've found 3: ezPyCrypt, yawPyCrypt and KeyCzar (which actually supports a few languages, but Python is included amongst them). The first two rely on the PyCrypto module.

Are there choices I am missing? Is there a clear front-runner for ease and features or does it simply come down to a manner of one's comfort level?

I'm currently leaning towards KeyCzar, with ezPyCrypt close behind.

I would be using the library for digital signature signing and verification, and potentially for key creation (although I won't cry if I have to make a call to something else for that functionality).

I am using Python 3.x and have access to GPG.

Answer 1

A new cryptography library for Python has been in rapid development for a few months now. The 0.2.1 release just happened a few days ago.

https://cryptography.io/en/latest/

It is mainly a CFFI wrapper around existing C libraries such as OpenSSL. It is distributed as a pure python module and supports CPython versions 2.6 - 3.3 as well as PyPy. It is also the upstream of the refactored pyOpenSSL package.

It aims to expose high-level "recipes" that makes cryptography as idiot-proof as possible as well as primitives that should only be used with the appropriate caution. Symmetric algorithms (including AES-GCM) is very well supported and asymmetric algorithms such as RSA and DSA should be coming in the next few releases. Other notable algorithms that are supported includes PBKDF2, HKDF, HOTP and TOTP.