illisible

illisible

A powerful and high-performance cross-runtime encryption software.

Table of contents

• Installation
• What's illisible
• Cipher vs Hash
• API Documentation
  • init
  • generateKey
  • encrypt
  • decrypt
  • hash
• Author
• Other packages
• Contact Me
• License

Installation

# npm
$ npm install illisible

# yarn
$ yarn add illisible

# pnpm
$ pnpm add illisible

# bun
$ bun add illisible

# deno
$ deno add npm:illisible

What's illisible

Illisible is a french word that means "unreadable", and in fact, its goal is to make your sensitive data secure and unreadable by unauthorized sources. To achive that purpose, it uses the powerful AES-GCM algorithm to cipher (encrypt), decipher (decrypt) and hash (SHA-256) your data.

For encryption and decryption, it uses a two-layer encryption method. The first layer employs AES-GCM, while the second applies an algorithm that shuffles the encrypted data, adding an extra layer of security.

It's compatible with Node, Deno, Bun, Browsers and has been designed to be efficient, easy-to-use, with a very clear APIs.

It'll be compatible with React native also in v2.

Cipher vs Hash

• cipher: A cipher is a method used to protect information by transforming readable data (plaintext) into an unreadable form (ciphertext) using a secret key. The same or a related key can then be used to reverse the process and recover the original plaintext. This makes ciphers reversible, as long as the correct key is known. Modern ciphers, such as AES, RSA, and ChaCha20, are designed to secure data against unauthorized access. The main goal of a cipher is confidentiality, ensuring that only those with the proper key can understand the message.

• Hash: A hash is a one-way mathematical function that converts input data into a fixed-length string of characters, often called a hash value or digest. Unlike a cipher, a hash cannot be reversed to retrieve the original input. Even a tiny change in the input will produce a completely different hash value, making it useful for verifying data integrity, password storage, and digital signatures. Examples of hashing algorithms include SHA-256, MD5, and BLAKE2. The primary purpose of a hash is integrity and identification, not confidentiality.

API Documentation

Note: We're using top-level await in this documentation, so make sure that your environment is properly configured to support it as well.

init

First of all, we need to initialize illisible.

import illisible from 'illisible';

const illi = illisible.init({
    key: 'Vipi8IAWAYBlEWXCAlBWkk3TouVzpe63', // The "key" should always be alphanumeric
    algo: '128'
});

• init(*): It takes as argument a JSON object with the following properties :

  • key: (string) Your secret encryption key.

  • algo?: (128 | 256) The algo that will be used by default for both encryption and decryption. It's optional and use the 128 algo by default.

• AES-128: It uses a 128-bit key (16 bytes). This means there are 2¹²⁸ possible keys, which is already astronomically large. It is faster than AES-256 because it requires fewer rounds of computation (10 rounds). Despite having a shorter key length, AES-128 is still considered extremely secure and has no practical attacks against it when implemented correctly.

• AES-256: It uses a 256-bit key (32 bytes). This doubles the key size compared to AES-128, giving 2²⁵⁶ possible keys. It requires more computational effort (14 rounds) and is therefore slightly slower than AES-128. The larger key length provides a higher theoretical security margin, making brute-force attacks even less feasible. AES-256 is often chosen for situations where long-term data protection is required or when regulations demand maximum key length.

In most cases, AES-128 is recommended since it’s faster and already provides more than enough security for practical use.

generateKey

const key = illi.generateKey();
console.log('key ::', key);

• generateKey(?): It optionally takes as argument a JSON object with the following property :

  • algo: (128 | 256) Specify the algo for which you want to generate the key. It use 128 by default.

# log
key :: '3UkiYYyolTle5yepi3otaTAmr53B0UZW'

It returns the key as an alphanumeric string with a length of 32 for 128 and a length of 64 for 256.

encrypt

const data = 'Hello, world !';
const encrypt = await illi.encrypt({ data: data });
console.log('Encrypted data ::', encrypt);

• encrypt(*): It takes as argument a JSON object with the following properties :

  • data: (string) The data you want to encrypt.

  • algo?: (128 | 256) Allow to specify if you want to encrypt the data with either 128 (default) or 256 algo.

# log
Encrypted data :: {
  ok: true,
  log: '',
  data: '500d17-bfaba-32309-4e61c-8ccf-79299d-a3a36-a875d-0d8fb-f3036-36c64-e9-6aed58-8b69f-ece8b-02c73-fe46c-cc7'
}

It returns as result a JSON object with the following properties :

• ok: (boolean) Indicates the status of the process: true for success and false for failure.

• log: (string) Contains the error message in case of failure.

• data: (any | undefined) Contains the expected result or undefined in case of failure.

Note: Except generateKey(), all other APIs will always return the same JSON format as result.

decrypt

/* Encrypted value of "Hello, world !" */
const encryptedData = '500d17-bfaba-32309-4e61c-8ccf-79299d-a3a36-a875d-0d8fb-f3036-36c64-e9-6aed58-8b69f-ece8b-02c73-fe46c-cc7';
const decrypt = await illi.decrypt({ data: encryptedData });
console.log('Decrypted data ::', decrypt.data);

• decrypt(*): It takes as argument a JSON object with the following properties :

  • data: (string) The encrypted data you want to decrypt.

  • algo?: (128 | 256) Allow to specify the decryption algo, and note that the decryption algo should always be the same as the encryption algo, if not the process will fail.

# log
Decrypted data :: 'Hello, world !'

hash

const password = 'my_password';
const hash = await illi.hash({ data: password });
console.log('Hashed data ::', hash.data);

• hash(*): It takes as argument a JSON object with the following property :

  • data: (string) The data you want to hash.

# log
Hashed data :: 'f6e248ea994f3e342f61141b8b8e3ede86d4de53257abc8d06ae07a1da73fb39'

Author

My name is Hamet Kévin E. ODOUTAN (@vinoskey524) and I’ve been doing software development (web, desktop and mobile) since 2017.

I’m not the kind of developer who types “How to build a cool web app” into Google and picks the first response, or the kind who makes a dumb copy-paste from ChatGPT. No ! I like to understand things and know what I’m really doing. For me, a real developer should be able to explain every single line of his code.

Don’t ask me which school or university I attended, because I taught myself software engineering using PDFs from openclassrooms.com, which was called siteduzero when I started. A sad truth is that you can’t learn coding just by watching videos; you need books !

I’m really passionate about building software, and I sincerely believe that being a developer is not just a job, but a lifestyle !

Other packages

Below are other packages from the same author.

• forestdb: An uncomplicated real-time database with encrypted HTTP and WebSocket server-client communication, fast caching, dataflow and state management, a cross-runtime file system manager, and more, working seamlessly on both frontend and backend.

• cococity: A lightweight and high-performance library that provides regional data and precise GPS-based localization, without relying on external APIs.

Contact Me

Feel free to reach me at [e-mail]. I speak both French and English.

License

MIT License

Copyright (c) [2025] [Hamet Kévin E. ODOUTAN]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES, OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF, OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.