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# What is the p≡p Engine?

The p≡p Engine is a Free Software library encapsulating implementations of:

- Key Management

  Key Management in the p≡p Engine is based on GnuPG key chains (NetPGP on iOS).

  Keys are stored in an OpenPGP-compatible format, and can be used for different crypto implementations.

- Trust Rating

  The p≡p Engine sports a two phase trust rating system for messages:

  In phase one a rating is derived based on channel, crypto and key security.

  This is named "comm\_types".

  In phase two these ratings are mapped to user-representable values mimicking the semantics of a traffic light.

- Abstract Crypto API

  The Abstract Crypto API provides functions to encrypt and decrypt data or full messages, without requiring an application programmer to understand the different applied formats and standards.

- Message Transports

  The p≡p Engine will sport a growing list of message transports, to support any widespread text-based messaging system such as E-Mail, SMS, XMPP and many more.

The p≡p Engine is written in C99 and is expected to run on any platform that conforms to the SUS/POSIX specification.

Selected non-SUS platforms are supported as well (such as Microsoft Windows).

# How can I use the p≡p Engine?

Build instructions can be found in the "doc/" subfolder in this repository.

The p≡p Engine is not meant to be used in application code directly.

Instead, the p≡p Engine is meant to be used in conjunction with a so-called "adapter".

An adapter provides an API in a programming language that best accomodates developers in their respective software development ecosystem.

So, for example, a Java Native Interface adapter exists for development of apps for the Android mobile operating system, or a .NET adapter exists for development of applications on Microsoft Windows.

Various adapters are also available at the link provided for the p≡p Engine's code above.

# What is the current state of the project?

The p≡p Engine is production-ready.

It is under active development by several full-time employees of the p≡p foundation and its partner organizations.

The most recent version of the source code can be obtained here: <https://cacert.pep.foundation/dev>.

This is the only offical way to obtain a copy of the source code.

# I would like to contribute to the p≡p Engine or a realated project, where do I start?

First of all, excellent!

We'd love to dicuss this opportunity further with you.

Please contact the upstream developers to get started.

See the [Contact](#contact) section.

# Legal notes

The p≡p Engine is Copyright 2015-2017 by p≡p foundation, Switzerland.

The source code of the p≡p Engine is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3.

Accompanying documentation is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) License.

Each file includes a notice near its beginning, that indicates the applicable license.

If you wish to license the p≡p Engine under different terms, please contact <mailto:council@pep.foundation>.

# Contact

The p≡p foundation and the developers of the p≡p Engine can be reached as detailed here: <https://pep.foundation/contact-us/index.html>.