Generated encrypted string does not have same size in PyCrypto and Crypto++

Question

I recently used a Python script to encrypt a string. But could not decrypt it in C++ using Crypto++. I just compared generated encrypted strings and found they are not the same. Anybody can help?

Here is my Python code:

key  = "0123456789abcdef"
data = "ccccccccccccccccdddddddddddddddd"
iv = "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"
encryptor = AES.new(key, AES.MODE_CBC, iv)
enc = encryptor.encrypt(data)
print enc

Here is my C++ code:

std::string key = "0123456789abcdef";
std::string iv  = "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa";


std::string plaintext = "ccccccccccccccccdddddddddddddddd";
std::string ciphertext;
std::string decryptedtext;

std::cout << "Plain Text (" << plaintext.size() << " bytes)" << std::endl;
std::cout << plaintext;
std::cout << std::endl << std::endl;

CryptoPP::AES::Encryption aesEncryption((byte *)key.c_str(), CryptoPP::AES::DEFAULT_KEYLENGTH);
CryptoPP::CBC_Mode_ExternalCipher::Encryption cbcEncryption( aesEncryption, (byte *)iv.c_str() );

CryptoPP::StreamTransformationFilter stfEncryptor(cbcEncryption, new CryptoPP::StringSink( ciphertext ) );
stfEncryptor.Put( reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char*>( plaintext.c_str() ), plaintext.length() + 1 );
stfEncryptor.MessageEnd();

std::cout << "Cipher Text (" << ciphertext.size() << " bytes)" << std::endl;

for( int i = 0; i < ciphertext.size(); i++ ) {

    std::cout << "0x" << std::hex << (0xFF & static_cast<byte>(ciphertext[i])) << " ";
}

CryptoPP::AES::Decryption aesDecryption((byte *)key.c_str(), CryptoPP::AES::DEFAULT_KEYLENGTH);
CryptoPP::CBC_Mode_ExternalCipher::Decryption cbcDecryption( aesDecryption, (byte *)iv.c_str() );

CryptoPP::StreamTransformationFilter stfDecryptor(cbcDecryption, new CryptoPP::StringSink( decryptedtext ) );
stfDecryptor.Put( reinterpret_cast<const unsigned char*>( ciphertext.c_str() ), ciphertext.size() );
stfDecryptor.MessageEnd();

std::cout << "Decrypted Text: " << std::endl;
std::cout << decryptedtext;
std::cout << std::endl << std::endl;

Answer 1

By default, Crypto++ employs PKCS5 padding to the plaintext strings. This adds padding to the end of the string to make sure the string is a multiple of the block size which, for AES, is 16 bytes. If the plaintext is already a multiple of 16, Crypto++ adds another 16 bytes of padding to the plaintext and then encrypts the whole thing. PyCrypto doesn't add this extra padding, leaving it up to the user to ensure the correct block size. Note that when you decrypt the Crypto++-encrypted cipher text, the extra padding is automatically removed.