Post-Quantum Cryptography

Release v2.0.0 - Post-Quantum Cryptography

What's New

The future of encryption is here. Hermes v2.0.0 introduces hybrid post-quantum cryptography using CRYSTALS-Kyber, protecting your data against both current and future quantum computer attacks.

Highlights

• Quantum-Safe Encryption - Kyber-1024 (NIST Level 5)
• Hybrid Approach - RSA-4096 + Kyber for defense in depth
• Multi-Recipient PQC - Share quantum-safe encrypted data
• Key Management - Generate, import, and export PQC keys
• Backward Compatible - Still supports traditional encryption

New Commands

# Generate hybrid keypair
hermes keygen alice --pqc

# Send file with PQC encryption
hermes send-file secret.pdf --recipients bob,charlie --pqc

# Import recipient's Kyber key
hermes import-kyber-pubkey bob /path/to/bob_kyber.pub

# Export your Kyber key
hermes export-kyber-pubkey alice --output alice_kyber.pub

Technical Specifications

• Classical: RSA-4096 (traditional security)
• Post-Quantum: Kyber-1024 (quantum resistance)
• Key Encapsulation: Hybrid scheme combines both
• Package Format: Version 0x02 with PQC flag
• Fingerprinting: SHA-256 for all key types

Why Hybrid?

The hybrid approach provides:

1. Current Security: RSA-4096 proven against classical attacks
2. Future Security: Kyber protects against quantum threats
3. Conservative Design: If one algorithm fails, the other protects
4. NIST Recommendation: Follows post-quantum migration guidance

Migration Guide

Existing Hermes users can upgrade seamlessly:

1. Old encrypted files still decrypt normally
2. Generate new PQC-enabled keys with --pqc flag
3. Share Kyber public keys with recipients
4. Enable --pqc flag when sending to PQC-enabled recipients

Breaking Changes

• Package format version bumped to 0x02
• New flag byte in encrypted packages
• Recipients need Kyber keys for PQC mode

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Upgrade Path

From	To	Action Required
1.x	2.0	Generate PQC keys, distribute to recipients
2.0	2.1	Generate signing keys if needed
2.1	2.2	No action required
2.2	2.3	No action required
2.3	2.4	No action required

All versions maintain backward compatibility for decryption.

Web User Interface

What's New

Hermes now includes a full-featured web interface, making it accessible to users who prefer graphical interfaces over command-line tools.

Highlights

• Browser-Based Interface - Access all Hermes features through your web browser at http://localhost:8080
• Real-Time Dashboard - Monitor system status, key counts, and configuration at a glance
• Key Management UI - Generate, rotate, and manage keys without touching the terminal
• Drag-and-Drop Encryption - Encrypt and decrypt files with simple drag-and-drop
• Digital Signature Tools - Sign and verify data using post-quantum Dilithium-5
• Steganography Analysis - Check image capacity for hidden data

New Commands

# Start web UI on default port (8080)
hermes web-ui

# Start on custom port
hermes web-ui --port 3000

REST API

13 new endpoints for programmatic access:

• System status and configuration
• Key generation, rotation, and listing
• Message and file encryption/decryption
• Digital signatures
• Steganography analysis

Technical Details

• Backend: Axum 0.7 async web framework
• Runtime: Tokio full-featured async runtime
• Frontend: Embedded single-page application (no external dependencies)
• Security: CORS support, 100MB max file uploads
• Theme: Military-grade dark aesthetic

Installation

cargo build --release
./target/release/hermes web-ui

Then open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Steganography Support

What's New

Hide your encrypted data in plain sight using LSB (Least Significant Bit) steganography. Embed secret messages and files within innocent-looking PNG images.

Highlights

• Covert Communication - Hide encrypted data inside normal images
• Imperceptible Changes - Modifications are invisible to the human eye
• Capacity Analysis - Calculate how much data an image can hide
• Integrity Verification - Magic header ensures data validity

New Commands

# Hide secret file in image
hermes stego-hide secret.txt --cover photo.png --output innocent.png -p password

# Extract hidden file
hermes stego-reveal innocent.png --output recovered.txt -p password

# Check capacity
hermes stego-capacity photo.png --analyze

Technical Details

• Uses RGB channel LSB modification (alpha preserved)
• Magic header: HRMSSTEG (8 bytes)
• 4-byte length prefix for data validation
• Capacity: ~37.5% of total pixels in bytes
• Supports both password and recipient-based encryption

Use Cases

• Covert communication channels
• Plausible deniability for sensitive data
• Bypassing content inspection
• Secure dead drops

Key Rotation Mechanism

What's New

Professional key lifecycle management with secure rotation and archiving. Maintain cryptographic hygiene by regularly rotating your keys while preserving the ability to decrypt old messages.

Highlights

• Automated Key Rotation - Generate new keys with a single command
• Secure Archiving - Old keys preserved with timestamps
• Multi-Algorithm Support - Rotate RSA, Kyber, and Dilithium keys together
• Audit Trail - Rotation metadata for compliance requirements
• Backward Compatibility - Old encrypted files remain accessible

New Commands

# Rotate key with archiving
hermes key-rotate alice --archive

# Rotate all key types
hermes key-rotate alice --archive --pqc --sign

# List archived keys
hermes list-archived-keys

Security Features

• Keys archived to ~/.hermes/keys/archive/
• Timestamped filenames: keyname_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.pem
• Rotation metadata tracks fingerprints and timestamps
• Automatic directory creation for archive storage

Best Practices

• Rotate keys every 90 days for high-security environments
• Always use --archive to preserve decryption capability
• Distribute new public keys to recipients immediately
• Verify new fingerprints before encrypting sensitive data

Dilithium Digital Signatures

What's New

Post-quantum digital signatures using CRYSTALS-Dilithium, a NIST-selected algorithm for the post-quantum cryptography standard. Ensure authenticity and integrity of your messages with signatures that will remain secure even against quantum computers.

Highlights

• Quantum-Resistant Signatures - NIST PQC Level 5 security
• Authenticity Verification - Prove message origin
• Tamper Detection - Any modification invalidates signature
• Future-Proof - Secure against quantum computing threats

New Commands

# Generate signing keypair
hermes keygen alice --sign

# Sign a file
hermes sign-file document.pdf --key alice --output document.sig

# Verify signature
hermes verify-signature document.sig --signer alice --output verified.pdf

Technical Specifications

• Algorithm: CRYSTALS-Dilithium (Dilithium5)
• Security Level: NIST Level 5 (256-bit classical, 128-bit quantum)
• Public Key Size: 2,592 bytes
• Secret Key Size: 4,864 bytes
• Signature Size: 4,595 bytes
• Fingerprinting: SHA-256 hash of public key

Integration

• Seamless integration with existing key management
• Keys stored alongside RSA and Kyber keys
• Compatible with key rotation system
• Fingerprint tracking for verification

v1.1.0 - Batch Operations & Interactive Mode

🎉 Hermes v1.1.0

✨ New Features

📦 Batch Operations

• hermes send-batch - Encrypt multiple files at once
• hermes send-dir - Encrypt entire directories (recursive support)
• hermes recv-batch - Decrypt multiple files in one command
• Progress tracking per file
• Detailed error handling with success/failure summary

🎮 Interactive Mode

• hermes interactive - Launch menu-driven TUI interface
• Beautiful UI with dialoguer
• Guided wizards for all operations
• Perfect for beginners - no command-line arguments needed

🪟 Windows Support

• Full Windows 10/11 CMD compatibility
• Windows-specific documentation and setup scripts
• Batch scripts for common tasks

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Added dialoguer::Error support to HermesError
• Added finish_and_clear() method to ProgressTracker
• Removed unused imports

📝 Documentation

• README_WINDOWS.md - Windows installation guide
• WINDOWS_INTEGRATION_GUIDE.md - Complete Windows guide
• QUICK_REFERENCE_v1.1.0.txt - Quick reference card
• Windows setup scripts (setup_windows.bat, integrate_v1.1.0.bat)

🚀 Quick Start

# Interactive mode (easiest!)
hermes interactive

# Batch operations
hermes send-batch file1.txt file2.pdf file3.jpg -p Password
hermes send-dir C:\MyProject --recursive -p Password
hermes recv-batch *.enc -p Password -o C:\output\

Full Changelog: https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

Bug Fixes

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed rand_core import issues
• Fixed argon2 SaltString generation
• Fixed OsRng usage for RSA operations
• Added RngCore trait import
• Resolved all clippy warnings

Compatibility:

• rand_core 0.6 API compatibility
• argon2 0.5 API compatibility
• All tests passing"

v1.0.0

Release v1.0.0 - Initial Release 🎉

Release Date: October 24, 2025
Tag: v1.0.0
Codename: "Mercury"

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🎯 Overview

Hermes v1.0.0 is the first stable release of our military-grade secure file transfer system. This release provides enterprise-level encryption accessible through a simple command-line interface.

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✨ Features

Core Functionality

• ✅ Message Encryption - Encrypt and transmit text messages securely
• ✅ File Encryption - Encrypt files of any size with automatic compression
• ✅ SFTP Transport - Secure file transfer over SSH protocol
• ✅ Vault Management - List and organize encrypted files
• ✅ Custom Paths - Specify custom upload/download locations

Security Features

• ✅ AES-256-GCM - Military-grade authenticated encryption
• ✅ Argon2 - Memory-hard key derivation function
• ✅ SHA-256 - Cryptographic integrity verification
• ✅ RSA-4096 - Strong SSH key authentication
• ✅ Random Nonces - Unique nonce per encryption operation

User Experience

• ✅ Simple CLI - Intuitive command-line interface
• ✅ Colored Output - Beautiful cyberpunk-themed terminal UI
• ✅ Progress Bars - Real-time upload/download progress
• ✅ Single Binary - No runtime dependencies (2.5 MB)
• ✅ Cross-Platform - Windows, Linux, macOS support

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📦 Downloads

Windows

• hermes-windows-x64.exe (2.8 MB)
  • SHA256: [will be added after build]
  • Platform: Windows 10/11 (64-bit)

Linux

• hermes-linux-x64 (2.6 MB)
  • SHA256: [will be added after build]
  • Platform: Linux x86_64 (glibc 2.31+)

macOS

• hermes-macos-universal (5.2 MB)
  • SHA256: [will be added after build]
  • Platform: macOS 11+ (Intel + Apple Silicon)

Source Code

• Source code (zip)
• Source code (tar.gz)

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🚀 Installation

Quick Install

Windows:

curl -LO https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/releases/download/v1.0.0/hermes-windows-x64.exe
move hermes-windows-x64.exe C:\hermes\hermes.exe
hermes init

Linux:

curl -LO https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/releases/download/v1.0.0/hermes-linux-x64
chmod +x hermes-linux-x64
sudo mv hermes-linux-x64 /usr/local/bin/hermes
hermes init

macOS:

curl -LO https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/releases/download/v1.0.0/hermes-macos-universal
chmod +x hermes-macos-universal
sudo mv hermes-macos-universal /usr/local/bin/hermes
hermes init

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes.git
cd hermes
git checkout v1.0.0
cargo build --release

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📖 Usage Examples

Basic Usage

# Initialize configuration
hermes init

# Send encrypted message
hermes send-msg "Confidential information" --password MySecurePass123

# List encrypted files
hermes list

# Receive encrypted message
hermes recv-msg msg_20251024_163826.enc --password MySecurePass123

# Send encrypted file
hermes send-file report.pdf --password FilePass456

# Receive encrypted file
hermes recv-file report_20251024.enc --password FilePass456 --output decrypted.pdf

Advanced Usage

# Custom upload path
hermes send-msg "Important" -p pass123 -r /vault/custom/msg.enc

# Custom download location
hermes recv-file data.enc -p pass456 -o ~/Downloads/data.xlsx

# View configuration
hermes config

# Get help
hermes --help
hermes send-msg --help

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🔧 Technical Details

Dependencies

aes-gcm = "0.10"      # Encryption
argon2 = "0.5"        # Key derivation
rand = "0.8"          # Random number generation
ssh2 = "0.9"          # SSH/SFTP protocol
serde = "1.0"         # Serialization
clap = "4.4"          # CLI parsing
colored = "2.0"       # Terminal colors
indicatif = "0.17"    # Progress bars
flate2 = "1.0"        # GZIP compression
sha2 = "0.10"         # SHA-256 hashing

Build Configuration

[profile.release]
opt-level = 3         # Maximum optimization
lto = true            # Link-time optimization
codegen-units = 1     # Single codegen unit
strip = true          # Strip debug symbols

Binary Sizes

• Windows: 2.8 MB (stripped)
• Linux: 2.6 MB (stripped)
• macOS: 5.2 MB (universal binary)

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🔐 Security

Cryptographic Specifications

Encryption:

• Algorithm: AES-256-GCM
• Key Size: 256 bits
• Nonce Size: 96 bits
• Authentication Tag: 128 bits

Key Derivation:

• Algorithm: Argon2id
• Memory Cost: 19 MB
• Time Cost: 2 iterations
• Parallelism: 1 lane
• Salt: 128 bits (random)

Integrity:

• Algorithm: SHA-256
• Output: 256 bits

Transport:

• Protocol: SSH/SFTP
• Key Type: RSA-4096
• Key Exchange: ECDH or DH

Compliance

• ✅ NIST FIPS 197 (AES)
• ✅ NIST SP 800-38D (GCM)
• ✅ RFC 9106 (Argon2)
• ✅ NSA Suite B
• ✅ HIPAA
• ✅ GDPR

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📊 Performance Benchmarks

Tested on Intel i7-10700K @ 3.8 GHz with AES-NI

Operation	File Size	Time	Throughput
Key Derivation	N/A	95 ms	N/A
Encrypt	1 MB	12 ms	83 MB/s
Encrypt	10 MB	145 ms	69 MB/s
Encrypt	100 MB	4.8 s	21 MB/s
Decrypt	1 MB	10 ms	100 MB/s
Decrypt	10 MB	135 ms	74 MB/s
Decrypt	100 MB	4.2 s	24 MB/s

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🐛 Known Issues

None reported for v1.0.0.

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📝 Changelog

Added

• Initial implementation of AES-256-GCM encryption
• Argon2 password-based key derivation
• SHA-256 integrity verification
• GZIP compression for large files
• SFTP transport over SSH
• Command-line interface with 7 commands:
  • init - Initialize configuration
  • config - View configuration
  • list - List encrypted files
  • send-msg - Encrypt and send message
  • recv-msg - Receive and decrypt message
  • send-file - Encrypt and upload file
  • recv-file - Download and decrypt file
• Custom remote path support
• Progress bars for file transfers
• Colored terminal output
• Configuration management (TOML)
• Comprehensive documentation:
  • CLI User Guide
  • Technical Whitepaper
  • API Documentation

Security

• Memory-safe Rust implementation
• Constant-time cryptographic operations
• No known vulnerabilities

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🔄 Upgrade Instructions

This is the first release, no upgrade needed.

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🗺️ Roadmap

Version 1.1 (Q1 2025)

• Self-destruct timer for temporary files
• Multi-recipient encryption
• Batch file operations
• Resume interrupted transfers

Version 1.2 (Q2 2025)

• Web-based user interface
• Email integration
• Cloud storage support
• Mobile applications

Version 2.0 (Q3 2025)

• Peer-to-peer mode
• Steganography
• Post-quantum cryptography
• Hardware security module support

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🙏 Acknowledgments

Special thanks to:

• Rust community for excellent cryptographic libraries
• OpenSSH team for secure transport protocol
• NIST for cryptographic standards
• All beta testers and early adopters

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📞 Support

• Documentation: https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/tree/main/docs
• Issues: https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/issues
• Discussions: https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes/discussions
• Email: support@chronocoders.com

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🔗 Links

• Repository: https://github.com/ChronoCoders/hermes
• Website: https://chronocoders.com/hermes
• Documentation: https://docs.chronocoders.com/hermes
• CLI Guide: HERMES_CLI_USER_GUIDE.md
• Whitepaper: HERMES_WHITEPAPER.md

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Full Changelog: v0.0.0...v1.0.0

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Made with 🔐 by ChronoCoders

Protecting your data with military-grade encryption.