(PHP 7 >= 7.2.0, PHP 8)
sodium_crypto_box_seal — Anonymous public-key encryption
Encrypt a message such that only the recipient can decrypt it.
Unlike with sodium_crypto_box(), you only need to know the recipient's public key to use sodium_crypto_box_seal(). One consequence of this convenience, however, is that the ciphertext isn't bound to a static public key, and is therefore not authenticated. Hence, anonymous public-key encryption.
sodium_crypto_box_seal() still provides ciphertext integrity. Just not sender identity authentication.
If you also need sender authentication, the sodium_crypto_sign() functions are likely the best place to start.
messageThe message to encrypt.
public_keyThe public key that corresponds to the only key that can decrypt the message.
A ciphertext string in the format of (one-time public key, encrypted message, authentication tag).
Example #1 sodium_crypto_box_seal() example
<?php
$keypair = sodium_crypto_box_keypair();
$public_key = sodium_crypto_box_publickey($keypair);
// Obfuscated plaintext to make the example more fun
$plaintext_b64 = "V3JpdGluZyBzb2Z0d2FyZSBpbiBQSFAgY2FuIGJlIGEgZGVsaWdodCE=";
$decoded_plaintext = sodium_base642bin($plaintext_b64, SODIUM_BASE64_VARIANT_ORIGINAL);
$sealed = sodium_crypto_box_seal($decoded_plaintext, $public_key);
var_dump(base64_encode($sealed));
$opened = sodium_crypto_box_seal_open($sealed, $keypair);
var_dump($opened);
?>The above example will output something similar to:
string(120) "oRBXXAV4iQBrxlV4A21Bord8Yo/D8ZlrIIGNyaRCcGBfpz0map52I3xq6l+CST+1NSgQkbV+HiYyFjXWiWiaCGupGf+zl4bgWj/A9Adtem7Jt3h3emrMsLw=" string(41) "Writing software in PHP can be a delight!"